Rachel Cusk

Rachel Cusk (born February 8, 1967) is a Canadian-born author.

Quotes

• Once you have suffered sufficiently, the idea of making up John and Jane and having them do things together seems utterly ridiculous…
  • On feeling that writing fiction was fake and embarrassing in “Rachel Cusk: 'Aftermath was creative death. I was heading into total silence'” in The Guardian (2014 Aug 24)

• I annoy everybody, not just certain women…I think it is because I'm not interested in the group, only in the individual. What happens is my message enters the conflicted person reading it who is half self, half society but does not know where one begins and the other ends. I light up that conflict and it makes people angry.
  • On why her writing might cause a stir in “Rachel Cusk: 'Aftermath was creative death. I was heading into total silence'” in The Guardian (2014 Aug 24)

• There seems to be some problem about my identity. But no one can find it, because it’s not there—I have lost all interest in having a self. Being a person has always meant getting blamed for it.
  • On abandoning being a memoirist in “Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel” in the New Yorker (Aug 2017)

• I worry I don’t see things the way everyone else does.
  • On her anxieties as a writer (as quoted in “I Have Lost All Interest in Having a Self”) (2019 Sep 19)