Quotes from Rachel Cusk

There is always shame in the creation of an object for the public gaze.

Society in the English countryside is still strangely, quaintly divided. If black comedy and a certain type of social commentary are what you want, I think English rural communities offer quite a lot of material.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

In domestic life, the woman's value is inherent, unquantifiable; at home she exchanges proven values for mythological ones. She 'wants' to be at home, and because she is a woman, she's allowed to want it. This desire is her mystique, it is both what enables her to domesticate herself and what disempowers her.

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.

Writing, more than any other art, is indexed to the worthiness of the self because it is identified in peoples minds with emotion.

I have absolutely no concept of work, except for university. But I like to talk to people a lot about their jobs.