Rachel Kushner Quotes
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Writing is a way of living. It doesn't quite matter that there are too many books for the number of readers in the world to read them. It's a way of being alive for the writer.
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I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.
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My neighbors think I do nothing because I don't go to a job, which is fine and good.
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I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.
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I have enormous respect for people who are gifted mechanics.
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Artists complain about the art world until it starts rubbing their back, then they have their love affair with it.
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Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.
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I suppose I am interested in women plus anonymity plus disappearance.
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A lot of politics in art is just institutional critique, which, in my opinion, is not all that political.
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I don't believe in the model of pure inspiration. All of my creative work stems from a dialogue with others.
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For me, art is not 'brooding.' It comes from someplace that is more fun and that has a kind of electricity to it.
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I think the art world heightens the intensity of desires for inclusion, and the humiliations of exclusion, which is why it's a great place to circulate when you are in the lucky position, as I am, of not wanting or needing anything from anyone.
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I think sometimes writers can get themselves into trouble trying to exert a totally controlled and super-knowing tone. This kind of knowingness is not the most promising tone to be sustained throughout a novel, to have a young woman who understands everybody and is always reading a room perfectly.
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I think that when the social stakes for people are higher, how you present yourself may sometimes feel like it's going to inform your destiny. Because if other people regard you in a certain way, they'll want to help you, and you will end up having a career.
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Themes only arise after a novel is written, and people begin to try to talk about it.
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I have never liked the 'Been there done that' thing... You hear that all the time from people, and I think it's just based on pure insecurity... Each person is going to have their own unique take on something.
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I guess I'm not really fond of just chit-chatting. I want to learn something and have an experience.
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I spent a huge amount of time by myself. I daydreamed and learned how to be alone and not be lonely.
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It's a cliche, and in a way it's a conservative idea about fiction, but I did learn the hard way that plot does need to dictate the story.
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From 'Midnight Cowboy' to 'Taxi Driver' is a brief era whose grit, beauty, and violence has been quite mythologized.
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When I see things in the world that leap out at me, I want to make use of them in fiction. Maybe every writer does that. It just depends on what you claim or appropriate as yours.
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I think character is very much a product of where you live, who you are, what is happening in that time of your life, and I'm interested in those pressures, those forces. A political context, a social context, really determines if not who people are then how they treat one another and what they say, how they speak.
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I usually get up between 7 A.M. and 8 A.M., have coffee, and go right to work. It's really important not to get sidetracked in the morning so I'm still in that dreamy state for my writing.
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I'm hesitant to ever take on the crest of the veteran. So I don't know who I am to warn the younger writer about the perils to come. I think maybe the most dangerous influence is to think you have all the answers and should be giving counsel.