Rachel Kushner Quotes

If it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, then we needed to be in some other line of work.

I went to grad school in San Francisco, and then left for New York City with my eye on Broadway. I had saved $5000, which seemed like a lot of money in my mind... until I realized it was going to take $2500 to get to New York and then the first and last month's rent.

I live in New York simply because I don't know any better. I moved there when the show went off the air a couple of years after that.

The average actor might only be able to book six to eight guest star jobs a year - that would be high. So when you start doing the math, you can't live on that in Los Angeles.

You have to do whatever jobs you can to pay the rent.

All I ever wanted to do was be able to pay my rent.

I didn't think we would ever make enough money to pay rent by playing music.

Acting wasn't some long-held dream, and it still isn't, really. I'm just trying to make some money and pay the bills.

Eventually, I decided that if I was going to really write a novel, I couldn't do it in New York City while holding down a job. You need a constant money source to live in New York City unless you're independently wealthy, which I'm not.

These days an income is something you can't live without - or within.

Everyone in New York wants to move to London, and everyone in London wants to live in New York. A few people want to live in L.A., but I'll never understand that. It's too much for me.

Economic security can feel like an impossible goal when you're living paycheck to paycheck, deciding between paying the light bill or the water bill, knowing the decision to pay either one may mean you can't put food on the table.

When I was 19 or 20 years old, I wasn't making a living wrestling. I needed a full-time income.

I've lived in New York City all my life. I love New York City; I've never moved from New York City. Have I ever thought about moving out of New York? Yeah, sure. I need about $10 million to do it right, though.

America is a great country, but you can't live in it for nothing.

New York City is still the art capital - every time I'm in New York, I'm thinking about competition.

I was 17 when I moved to NYC . I'm now 32. But I do know I can't see myself living anywhere else. I love the food, the fashion, art, the intelligence of this city and the people that live in it.

New York City is filled with the same kind of people I left New Jersey to get away from.

I think that, just like the art scene and the music scene is exploding in LA - I mean, let's face it: if you want to be an artist you cannot live in New York anymore because it is too expensive…

I am a New Yorker, one; I'm an artist, two; I'm a woman, three.

I've been back in New York a year and a half now. Before that I was on the West Coast for five years. There's no comparison between the two. You hear things in New York you don't hear anywhere else. Unless these guys go out. Quite a few make it out to the Coast. Of course, you can't stay in New York for ever. You have to move.

Time was when the average person could pay as he goes. Nowadays he has to pay as he comes and goes.

I've been told my old city possesses a 'thriving arts scene,' whatever that is; personally, I think artists should lie low and stick to their work, not line-dance through the parks.

I realized very early that I was never going to make by living by writing string quartets. But I wanted to write music and I didn't want to have to do anything else.

Seeing that I am so busily occupied with myself just now, I want to try to paint my self-portrait in writing.