Mary Gaitskill

"She brightened. "Last week I ran a personal ad in the Guardian. I answered a few too. I'm not looking for sex; I feel too vulnerable for that. I just want somebody to hurt me and humiliate me."

"Dani said this woman, with whom she'd lived for two years, had never known her. "I feel like people accept the first thing I show them," she said, "and that's all I ever am to them."

"Of course there's something there; unfortunately, there's always something 'there.' Something you will one day be sorry you ever saw."

"Everybody wanted to be depressed. But your depression was supposed to be funny, too, and that was what had proved too much for Dolores."

"Somebody once said to me if you want to be understood, don't write fiction."

"My ambition was to live like music."