“What scared her were other people and their immovable selfishness” PeopleFearScaredSelfishSelfishness Book:Lapvona Source: Lapvona
“If you look at the horror genre, that work is all about making people uncomfortable by stimulating our fear of death.” PeopleIfsLooksHorrorGenreUncomfortableFear Of DeathHorror Genre Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“Think about every time you've seen someone being objectified, abused, enslaved. We see it constantly on the TV, in magazines, on the Internet. We've become numb, so we do nothing. The accumulation of passivity might make reading about that exploitation uncomfortable. And sometimes when I'm writing, I think of it like this: "People seem to like garbage, so here is what garbage smells like..."” PeopleThinkingWritingSometimesSeemsMightReadingTvsInternetSmellMagazinesUncomfortableExploitationGarbageAccumulationNumbPassivity Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“I don't need to feel 100% safe, but I have to feel like there's room for me to go a little bit insane if I'm going to have good ideas. Because a good idea is a new idea and if you start going around like, "I have this new idea!" most people are gonna be like, "I've never heard that before, that sounds fishy."” PeopleInsaneFishy Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“People have been asking me, "What advice do you have for young writers?" I tell them: a) get off social media; b) don't ask your friends what they think about your work or your ideas. You need to focus and be insane within yourself to build your sandcastle. The mind is so malleable and you need to have a steel trap around it, at least while you're working on something.” PeopleThinkingMindFocusAdviceSocial MediaInsane Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“There are a lot of smart people being really thoughtful and writing really interesting things, but that isn't what I want to do. It's never felt like what I've been called to do. And I have to risk sounding really arrogant when I say that because I've gone to Ivy League schools and been privileged in all these ways in the world of ideas, but I'm not as smart as you think. I'm not really depending on what I learned in college to write my books. Those were just parts of my life experience.” PeopleThinkingWorldWritingBookSchoolInterestingRiskCollegeSmartLeagueThoughtfulBeing RealLife ExperienceArrogantReally InterestingSmart People Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“I think we waste a lot of time trying to convince other people that we're right. A lot of times we don't actually care what another person thinks, we just want to say what we think. To hear it reflected back to us and that we're okay, to hear that we have been understood and that we're correct - so that we can continue to be who we are in the ways we've been being, and we have nothing to feel bad about and everything is just fine. Even if what we're talking about is, like, police brutality.” PeopleThinkingTryingCareOkayPoliceConvincePolice Brutality Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“Distance is where people get really confused. If you stand really far away from someone you're like, "That's not me. I'm so far away from that person. That person is so different from me." It's easy to forget that people - refugees from Syria, for example - are exactly like us.” PeopleDifferentEasyForgetDistanceConfusedFar AwaySyriaRefugeeGet Real Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“I was feeling like I'd been born in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. I don't believe that anymore, not coincidentally two years after writing Eileen. I think that was the driving curiosity for me, thinking about real and fictional characters who could respond to that problem.” PeopleThinkingWritingBelieveRealCharacterFeelingsProblemCuriosityDrivingWrong TimeFictional Character Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“Anybody that I like that you talk to about me will probably agree that when I'm hanging out with someone one-on-one, I have a tendency to build this attitude toward the world outside of us, it's us and them. I'm with you here, and you're with me, and we are in the club and everybody else out there is in that shitty club. The positive is I make people feel really special, and I also make some people really uncomfortable and judged, and I'm working on that.” PeopleWorldAttitudeSpecialAgreeUncomfortableHanging OutJudged Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“For me, I enjoy intimidating people and I enjoy being intimidated. It is exciting. It's cool to have an experience with someone where you challenge them, and they are afraid, and then they love you and they've grown. When that happens to me, I feel so blessed if somebody has opened my world up a little bit more.” PeopleWorldEnjoyChallengesLove YouExcitingBlessedIntimidatingIntimidated Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
“You know that's why people don't like unlikeable characters. It's not that they're not interesting. Everybody knows the most interesting character in a book or a movie or whatever narrative is the villain.” PeopleBookCharacterInterestingVillainMost Interesting Author:Ottessa Moshfegh
