“People who are harder to love pose a challenge, and the challenge makes them easier to love. You're driven to love them. People who want their love easy don't really want love.”
―
Rachel Kushner,
The Flamethrowers
“I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“A man could say every day that he wanted to change his life, was going to change it, and every day the lament became merely a part of the life he was already living, so that the desire for change was in fact a kind of stasis that allowed the unchanged life to continue, because at least the man knew to disapprove of it, which reassured him not all was lost.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“You have time. Meaning don't use it, but pass through time in patience, waiting for something to come. Prepare for its arrival. Don't rush to meet it. Be a conduit.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was OK to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“The answer is not coming. I have to find an arbitrary point inside the spell of waiting, the open absence, and tear myself away. Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“(Later, Giddle's response when I told her I was in love: "Oh God, I'm so sorry. Love is awful. It ruins every normal thing, everything but itself. It makes you crazy and for nothing, because it's so disappointing. But good luck with that.")” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“Did you ever notice that women can seem common while men never do? You won’t ever hear anyone describe a man’s appearance as common. The common man means the average man, a typical man, a decent hardworking person of modest dreams and resources. A common woman is a woman who looks cheap. A woman who looks cheap doesn’t have to be respected, and so she has a certain value, a certain cheap value.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“The thing is you keep existing whether you have a plan to do so or not, until you don’t exist, and then your plans are meaningless.” ― Rachel Kushner , The Mars Room
“Things are more complicated than some can admit. People are stupider and less demonic than some can admit.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“The word violence was depleted and generic from overuse and yet it still had power, still meant something, but multiple things. There were stark acts of it: beating a person to death. And there were more abstract forms, depriving people of jobs, safe housing, adequate schools. There were large-scale acts of it, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in a single year, for a specious war of lies and bungling, a war that might have no end, but according to prosecutors, the real monsters were teenagers like Button Sanchez.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“To be young was to be more closely rooted to the thing that forms you,” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“You would not have gone. I understand that. You would not have gone up to his room. You would not have asked him for help. You would not have been wandering lost at midnight at age eleven. You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different. But if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid, to get the money for the taxi.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“She smiled at him like they were about to rob a bank together.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“A man could say every day that he wanted to change his life, was going to change it, and every day the lament became merely a part of the life he was already living, so that the desire for change was in fact a kind of stasis that allowed the unchanged life to continue, because at least the man knew to disapprove of it, which reassured him not all was lost.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“You have time. Meaning don't use it, but pass through time in patience, waiting for something to come. Prepare for its arrival. Don't rush to meet it. Be a conduit.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“Making art was really about the problem of the soul, of losing it. It was a technique for inhabiting the world. For not dissolving into it.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was OK to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“The answer is not coming. I have to find an arbitrary point inside the spell of waiting, the open absence, and tear myself away. Leave, with no answer. Move on to the next question.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“(Later, Giddle's response when I told her I was in love: "Oh God, I'm so sorry. Love is awful. It ruins every normal thing, everything but itself. It makes you crazy and for nothing, because it's so disappointing. But good luck with that.")” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“Did you ever notice that women can seem common while men never do? You won’t ever hear anyone describe a man’s appearance as common. The common man means the average man, a typical man, a decent hardworking person of modest dreams and resources. A common woman is a woman who looks cheap. A woman who looks cheap doesn’t have to be respected, and so she has a certain value, a certain cheap value.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“The thing is you keep existing whether you have a plan to do so or not, until you don’t exist, and then your plans are meaningless.” ― Rachel Kushner , The Mars Room
“Things are more complicated than some can admit. People are stupider and less demonic than some can admit.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“The word violence was depleted and generic from overuse and yet it still had power, still meant something, but multiple things. There were stark acts of it: beating a person to death. And there were more abstract forms, depriving people of jobs, safe housing, adequate schools. There were large-scale acts of it, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in a single year, for a specious war of lies and bungling, a war that might have no end, but according to prosecutors, the real monsters were teenagers like Button Sanchez.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“To be young was to be more closely rooted to the thing that forms you,” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
“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, The Flamethrowers
“You would not have gone. I understand that. You would not have gone up to his room. You would not have asked him for help. You would not have been wandering lost at midnight at age eleven. You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different. But if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid, to get the money for the taxi.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
“She smiled at him like they were about to rob a bank together.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers
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