Mary Gaitskill Quotes

You are what you pretend to be.

One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.

One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.

When I've got all the makeup on and all the spit, polish and glue together, I look fine. But I know what I really look like, and I'm still that same little kid under there. I don't think I look that great. I think I did a good job of creating Morgan Fairchild. But I created her.

Whatever your image is, it's probably not you, but it affords you the freedom to live up to it.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

We are what we pretend to be.

We all become what we pretend to be.

We'd all like to be taken for what we'd like to be.

I've learned that it's harder to try to put on this goody two-shoes persona when that's not me.

I'm the female equivalent of a counterfeit $20 bill. Half of what you see is a pretty good reproduction, the rest is a fraud.

I feel I disappoint people when I am not 'Samantha.' They seem surprised when I don't have the same voice and the same mannerisms. They were booking 'Samantha,' and I would show up.

People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.

I know a lot of people think, 'She's so glamorous.' But that's really not me at all.

People assume when my hair is long that I am a lot cooler than I actually am. I am not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception.

I feel like I'm kind of faking something if I'm talking as myself and putting on an accent.

People often expect me to be something other than what I am.

My public persona is badly warped and bears little resemblance to the person those closest to me know.

I think I always resented the fact that people thought I was trying to entertain them with my multifaceted, chameleonlike character changes. Although I liked doing that, I wasn't out to fool people and say 'Guess which one is me.'

There's a difference between the parts that I play and who I am and who people think I am. There's quite a big discrepancy sometimes between those things.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.

If I put on a tie and play what I really think I am, I'm a disaster.

We all have split personalities; we all wear masks at some point in our careers.

I never manufactured my persona.

I am pretty much who I seem, and it's not a television host.