From 'Midnight Cowboy' to 'Taxi Driver' is a brief era whose grit, beauty, and violence has been quite mythologized. Rachel Kushner More Quotes by Rachel Kushner More Quotes From Rachel Kushner And here I arrive at my point. The point is that everyone has a different dream. The point is that it is a grave mistake to assume your dream is in any way shared, that it’s a common dream. Not only is it not shared, not common, there is no reason to assume that other people don’t find you and your dream utterly revolting. Rachel Kushner dreammistakepeople One of the strategies for doing first-person is to make the narrator very knowing, so that the reader is with somebody who has a take on everything they observe. Rachel Kushner narratorsknowingfirsts Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft. Rachel Kushner craftswritingyears I think art is much more about an engagement with the world, a way of being called upon and recognizing that the world is speaking to you. Which isn't quite solitude, even if you're alone when it happens. Rachel Kushner solitudeartthinking It was not the case that one thing morphed into another, child into woman. You remained the person you were before things happened to you. The person you were when you thought a small cut string could determine the course of a year. You also became the person to whom certain things happened. Who passed into the realm where you no longer questioned the notion of being trapped in one form. You took on that form, that identity, hoped for its recognition from others, hoped someone would love it and you. Rachel Kushner cuttingchildrenyears Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim. Rachel Kushner writingmenbook Lovers offered only what they offered and nothing more, and what they offered came with provisos: believe what you want and don't look carefully at what isn't acceptable to you. Rachel Kushner wantbelievelooks I don't quite see the 20th century as one of chaos. But I believe in certain inevitable outcomes of a materialist nature. Rachel Kushner chaosoutcomesbelieve In writing novels, you have to believe in yourself or there would be no way to sustain it. But you also have to give good evidence regularly for having that faith in self-either with quality goods or with, at least, "good efforts." Working hard will do when inspiration is not forthcoming. Rachel Kushner inspirationwritingbelieve A lot of politics in art is just institutional critique, which, in my opinion, is not all that political. Rachel Kushner opinionpoliticalart The VW doesn’t make you think of Hitler and genocide. It’s a breast on wheels, a puffy little dream. Rachel Kushner make-you-thinkdreamthinking While it might be true that our reality would suggest that more writers would address these elemental issues of modern life - work, the marketplace, brutality, race - I'm not sure I have enough of a sense in aggregate of what the dominant novelists are doing to comment on why less do, or if less do. Maybe that's partly because I don't feel woven into any kind of fabric of contemporaries; I just read what I read, and do what I do. Rachel Kushner modernkindreality Art is about play and about transcendent meanings, not reducible to politics. Rachel Kushner art-isplayart I am not a sun person at all. I think it's a cancerous poison and I don't want it touching me. Rachel Kushner touchingwantthinking Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question. Rachel Kushner nextanswersmoving Violence, factory politics - these things simply form some bedrock of what interests me, but I'm a child of the twentieth century. And I don't see reality and its violence, wars, oppression, etc., and fiction as counterposed. Rachel Kushner warchildrenreality I do not enjoy the promotional side of being a writer, to be blunt about it. Even with the little amount that is expected of me, which is nothing compared to the life of an artist. Writers can live in obscurity and come out of the woodwork with a book, then go back in. Artists don’t have that luxury. Rachel Kushner artistwritingbook To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something. Rachel Kushner alivepeople The desire for love is universal but that has never meant it’s worthy of respect. It’s not admirable to want love, it just is. Rachel Kushner wantdesirelove-is I like to think each writer is doing his or her part. Feeding the lake, as Jean Rhys said. And maybe there are different lakes. Rachel Kushner differentthinking
