Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk is a Canadian-born novelist and writer who lives and works in the United Kingdom...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
CountryCanada
awe capable certainly childless conception lawrence life possibly romantic sort travelling
I have a romantic conception of the writer's life, and the sort of writer's life that I admire is probably a childless life, possibly a marriageless life, certainly a travelling life - I'm in awe of how much D.H. Lawrence managed to get around. But that's never been something I'm capable of doing.
child divided love reclaim suggest taboo time women
It's a taboo that comes back over and over, to suggest that women can feel divided - that you can love your child and want to do everything for it, and at the same time want to put it away from you and reclaim something of yourself.
children waiting annoying
I'm waiting for the day when my children cease to find my domestic propriety reassuring and actually find it annoying.
children creativity writing
Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority.
children people firsts
Having your second child, in case you were wondering, is a lot harder than having your first, except for those people who find it easier. I'm afraid I don't have the latest figures to confirm this.
childhood curiosity states
Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.
children adults company
I absolutely don't dislike children - I would choose their company over adult company any time.
regret children thinking
My children are living, thinking human beings. It isn't in my power to regret them, for they belong to themselves.
lonely children reading
You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.
children writing risk
I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.
creativity ideas childhood
The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that others are demanding to be given it back - to be 'taught' - is disturbing.
female finest fond hysteria line subject
Female hysteria is a subject I'm very fond of. I always try to bring it in somewhere. For me, it is the finest part of the line between comedy and tragedy.
exactly expected forgets prompt raise resolve
It is expected that a children's story will raise a difficulty and then resolve it: increasingly, this resolution is so prompt and so resounding that one forgets what exactly the difficulty was.
anorexic brings discredit female machinery power prove public survive time
The anorexic is out to prove how little she needs, how little she can survive on; she is out, in a sense, to discredit her nurturers, while at the same time making a public crisis out of her need for nurture. Such vulnerability and such power: it brings the whole female machinery to a halt.