Mary Gaitskill Quotes

Sometimes I think I'm the craziest person on the planet.

Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious - it's like it's got a mind of its own.

I overthink decisions when I should really trust my heart.

You just wish you could lobotomize yourself and just do a thing that's really on instinct. There's always a certain self-consciousness. And you worry about that.

I am a very neurotic person all the time.

I'm a fairly neurotic person.

I suffer from anxiety, moments of depression. I'm in my head so much, and I'm thinking so much, I'm playing a tug-of-war within my mind.

I feel like a lot of times when stuff is on my mind, I really don't show it. I know how to hide my emotions.

... we have so many voices in us, how do we know which ones to obey?

If I have not lost my mind I can sometimes hear it preparing to defect

Do not let the body be dragged along by mind nor the mind be dragged along by the body

If your heart tells you something but your mind tells you something else, which do you believe? Both are just as apt to lie. In fact, they play at deceit all the time. Mostly they balance each other, giving us that crucial reality check. But what happens on the rare occasions when they conspire together?

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.

It's little I know what's in my heart,What's in my mind it's little I know,But there's that in me must up and start,And it's little I care where my feet go.

Caring less what everybody else thinks, but also caring less and less about what your own mind thinks, because what your own mind thinks, sometimes, is the thing that makes you sad.

I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind my wayward heart creates its own misery Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.

I'm afraid if I listen to my heart once, I'll never figure out how to ignore it again.

The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them. I was wondering what my body knew that I didn't.

I'm an extremist, I have to deal with my own extreme personality, and I walk the fine line of wanting to die and wanting to be the ruler of it all.

I am really driven, but my drive doesn't effect the conversations I have in my head about life, and my worries and fears and insecurities.

You can't second-guess baseball. You can't second-guess yourself.

I recognize a lot of the things I'm going through. Like, I lose my temper a lot and I become unhinged and kind of hysterical.

We shouldn't force ourselves to do something that really is just painful to us. If there is a discrepancy between what we are doing or putting our bodies through and then what our minds are telling us, you really have to look at yourself, and the most essential part of it is the pleasure aspect.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've worried too much. It always bothers me because sometimes you end up worrying more about the worry and you are not resolving things that are right there in front of you. I have been like that all my life, and it's hard to change.

You've got to go with what feels instinctive and true to your heart, and filter out all of the other stuff.