Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk is a Canadian-born novelist and writer who lives and works in the United Kingdom...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
CountryCanada
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.
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.
alienate material otherwise reader unable
In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.
good happy life line love obligation people sin women
There's this really good line in 'Women in Love' where Ursula says, 'I always thought it was a sin to be unhappy.' And actually I think that's very common, it's what a lot of people feel - that you have an obligation to life to be happy if you can.
forceful ideas literary obviously protection speak suppose within
I have some pretty forceful ideas about the world - obviously I do. But I suppose I can only really speak about them from within the protection of a literary form.
area drawn encounter far people york
I'm particularly drawn to actors in their own little drama. I find it's that area I'm very alive to. And I don't encounter it that often. You have to be far from civilization, you have to be far from New York or London to find people who do that.
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.
women
What compromises women - babies, domesticity, mediocrity - compromises writing even more.
amazingly america socially
The old world of England was picturesque and safe in a way that L.A. wasn't, but it was so amazingly socially cruel. I had never experienced that in America - never in school, nowhere.