Rachel Cusk Quotes

Powerful Rachel Cusk for Daily Growth

About Rachel Cusk

Rachel Cusk is a distinguished British novelist, essayist, and professor who has made significant contributions to contemporary literature. Born in 1964 in Swansea, Wales, she spent her formative years traveling between Canada, England, and Greece due to her parents' academic careers. This nomadic upbringing influenced her writing, often reflecting themes of identity, home, and displacement. Cusk studied at the University of Bristol, where she honed her literary skills before embarking on a successful career as a novelist. Her debut novel, "Saving Agnes" (1993), was followed by "The Temporary" (1995) and "The Country Life" (1998), all of which explored the complexities of family dynamics and interpersonal relationships. In 2001, she published "A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother," an unconventional memoir about her experience of pregnancy, motherhood, and femininity. This work marked a shift in Cusk's writing style towards more personal, introspective narratives. Her trilogy, "Outline" (2014), "Transit State" (2016), and "Kudos" (2018), further solidified her reputation as a master storyteller. These novels, written in a unique, minimalist style, revolve around the protagonist, a writer named Faye, who engages in introspective conversations with various individuals during her travels. Cusk's works have been celebrated for their profound insights into human nature, artfully blending fiction and non-fiction to create thought-provoking narratives. Her unique voice, combined with her ability to dissect the intricacies of human interactions, has earned her a dedicated following and critical acclaim. Currently, Cusk teaches creative writing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Melbourne, Australia. Her most recent work, "Second Place" (2021), continues her exploration of the complexities of relationships and identity.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The greatest power we have is the power to decide on our own identity, and the greatest tyranny is that which is exercised over ourselves by our assumption of an identity bestowed upon us by others."

This quote emphasizes the profound importance of self-definition in shaping one's identity. Rachel Cusk suggests that we possess a significant power - the ability to decide who we are for ourselves, rather than allowing others to define our identities based on their perceptions or expectations. The tyranny she speaks of is the internal oppression that arises when we adhere to an identity imposed by others, thus stifling our true selves and personal growth. Essentially, Cusk underscores the importance of embracing self-awareness and self-determination in shaping a meaningful, authentic life.

"We are all in a state of becoming, in all aspects of our lives; this is the human condition. But the process of becoming is often occluded or ignored by the desire for the illusion of completion and wholeness, which is really just the desire to be at rest."

This quote by Rachel Cusk highlights the continuous nature of personal growth and self-discovery in human life. The "state of becoming" refers to our ongoing process of learning, evolving, and transforming throughout various aspects of our lives, such as relationships, careers, or personal beliefs. However, we often seek a sense of completion or wholeness, desiring to reach a stable, unchanging state. This desire for finality is likened to a longing for rest, which can be seen as an attempt to escape the dynamic and sometimes challenging process of growth. Yet, Cusk suggests that this desire might stem from a misconception, as human nature inherently involves change and transformation. Embracing the fluidity and complexity of our lives may foster self-awareness and personal fulfillment.

"Artists are people who are not quite able to adapt themselves to life as it's presented to them, so they make their own, in their art."

This quote suggests that artists have an inherent inability or unwillingness to conform to the typical structures and expectations of society. Instead, they create their own realities through their artistic expressions. Essentially, artists are individuals who transform life's limitations into a world that resonates with their unique perspectives and emotions, allowing them to find solace, purpose, and creativity amidst the challenges of conforming to societal norms.

"Literature is about what a writer can remember, and memory is the artist's great instrument."

Rachel Cusk suggests that literature primarily revolves around the writer's memories, with memory serving as the essential tool for an artist. This implies that the experiences, feelings, and insights of the author, which are drawn from their personal recollections, form the foundation of literary work. In other words, literature is a reflection of the human experience captured through memory, and it is this unique perspective that makes every writer's art distinct and valuable.

"I think we all have within us a secret self that we are constantly trying to uncover, and this endeavor is the true meaning of our lives."

This quote by Rachel Cusk suggests that an essential aspect of human existence involves the continuous exploration and discovery of one's inner, authentic self. The "secret self" refers to the unique essence that defines each individual, which may be hidden or obscured due to societal expectations, past experiences, or personal biases. This journey towards self-discovery is not just a pursuit but the very purpose of our lives. By uncovering and embracing our true selves, we gain a deeper understanding of who we are, allowing us to live more authentic and fulfilling lives.

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.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Mystique, Allowed, Mythological

As it stands, motherhood is a sort of wilderness through which each woman hacks her way, part martyr, part pioneer; a turn of events from which some women derive feelings of heroism, while others experience a sense of exile from the world they knew.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Through, Some, Motherhood

There is always shame in the creation of an expressive work, whether it's a book or a clay pot. Every artist worries about how they will be seen by others through their work. When you create, you aspire to do justice to yourself, to remake yourself, and there is always the fear that you will expose the very thing that you hoped to transform.

- Rachel Cusk

Shame, Through, Very, Pot

What compromises women - babies, domesticity, mediocrity - compromises writing even more.

- Rachel Cusk

Mediocrity, More, Even, Compromises

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.

- Rachel Cusk

Divided, Rural, I Think, Commentary

Female hysteria is a subject I'm very fond of. I always try to bring it in somewhere. For me, it is the finest part of the line between comedy and tragedy.

- Rachel Cusk

Always, Very, Subject, Hysteria

For years I had lived in my body half-consciously, ignoring it mostly, dismissing its agendas wherever I could, and forever pressing it into the service of mental conceptions that resulted, almost as a by-product, sometimes in its pleasuring and sometimes in its abuse.

- Rachel Cusk

Abuse, Resulted, Mostly, Pressing

What I increasingly felt, in marriage and in motherhood, was that to live as a woman and to live as a feminist were two different and possibly irreconcilable things.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Increasingly, Felt, Feminist

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesn't want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.

- Rachel Cusk

Release, Very, Sonnet, Liberation

I'm a novelist, not a social scientist or a commentator.

- Rachel Cusk

Social, Scientist, Novelist, Commentator

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

- Rachel Cusk

Art, More, Other, Worthiness

I don't go to church any more, but I think that Catholicism is rather like the brand they use on cattle: I feel so formed in that Catholic mould that I don't think I could adopt any other form of spirituality. I still get feelings of consolation about churches.

- Rachel Cusk

Other, I Think, Rather, Churches

The old world of England was picturesque and safe in a way that L.A. wasn't, but it was so amazingly socially cruel. I had never experienced that in America - never in school, nowhere.

- Rachel Cusk

Cruel, England, Socially, Old World

I'm waiting for the day when my children cease to find my domestic propriety reassuring and actually find it annoying.

- Rachel Cusk

Waiting, Reassuring, Propriety

The anorexic is out to prove how little she needs, how little she can survive on; she is out, in a sense, to discredit her nurturers, while at the same time making a public crisis out of her need for nurture. Such vulnerability and such power: it brings the whole female machinery to a halt.

- Rachel Cusk

Prove, Anorexic, Whole, Nurture

Hope is like one of those orchids that grows around toxic waste: lovely in itself - and an assertion, if you like, of indefatigable good - but a sure sign that something nasty lies underneath.

- Rachel Cusk

Toxic, Waste, Grows, Sure Sign

The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the 'bad' mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is, in reality, good.

- Rachel Cusk

Fact, Bad, Good Mother, Fixed

I think men and women are the same. Even as parents, I think we're the same. We're just conditioned to think that we're different. Having said that, it's true that motherhood is a particularly vulnerable area. It's an open wound, really. A woman is exposed to being turned into a different kind of person by the experience of motherhood.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, I Think, Turned, Women Are

Some people are better at maths than others: no one thinks you can be 'taught' to be a mathematical genius. And no one thinks of teaching, in that context, as a kind of forcing of the will. But there seems to be an idea of writing as an intuitive pastime which is being dishonestly subjected to counterintuitive methods.

- Rachel Cusk

Some, Idea, Maths, Context

Parenthood, like death, is an event for which it is nearly impossible to be prepared. It brings you into a new relationship with the fact of your own existence, a relationship in which one may be rendered helpless.

- Rachel Cusk

New, Fact, Which, Helpless

If I know somebody is coming 'round, it is incredibly difficult for me to work because I'm waiting for this interruption - even the children's comings and goings are interruptions. Cake-making is a good way of coming out of that space.

- Rachel Cusk

Good, Waiting, Space, Interruption

Human beings have a need, generally, to destroy things. The Freudian principle of civilisation is correct. There's always, always a difference between the family image and the reality.

- Rachel Cusk

Always, Image, Principle, Civilisation

The anorexic body is held in the grip of will alone; its meaning is far from stable. What it says - 'Notice me, feed me, mother me' - is not what it means, for such attentions constitute an agonising test of that will, and also threaten to return the body to the dreaded 'normality' it has been such ecstasy to escape.

- Rachel Cusk

Been, Anorexic, Held, Normality

Even if they knew the truth of their own feelings, most mothers would be socially and emotionally incapable of revealing it.

- Rachel Cusk

Own, Knew, Socially, Incapable

I have a romantic conception of the writer's life, and the sort of writer's life that I admire is probably a childless life, possibly a marriageless life, certainly a travelling life - I'm in awe of how much D.H. Lawrence managed to get around. But that's never been something I'm capable of doing.

- Rachel Cusk

Doing, Admire, Been, Conception

Having your second child, in case you were wondering, is a lot harder than having your first, except for those people who find it easier. I'm afraid I don't have the latest figures to confirm this.

- Rachel Cusk

Your, Figures, Second, Wondering

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

- Rachel Cusk

Shame, Always, Public, Gaze

I don't think I knew that you could be a novelist. I think a lot of my students are in the same condition. I thought it was unreachable, that it was sort of dead people. It took me a long time - I think I was well into novel writing before I really thought, 'Actually, this is a valid pastime.'

- Rachel Cusk

Thought, I Think, Before, Unreachable

In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.

- Rachel Cusk

Making, Memoir, Otherwise, Alienate

The distinctive feature of my family was intolerance of sensitivity and emotion - 'Everything's great, it all has to be great all the time and why do you have to spoil it?' Whereas probably the most fundamental and important thing to me has been defending my right to tell the truth about how I feel.

- Rachel Cusk

Tell, Been, Important Thing, Whereas

I was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.

- Rachel Cusk

Belong, Been, Early Days, Surrender

You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.

- Rachel Cusk

Love, Small, Average, Tuesday

It is expected that a children's story will raise a difficulty and then resolve it: increasingly, this resolution is so prompt and so resounding that one forgets what exactly the difficulty was.

- Rachel Cusk

Will, Resolve, Increasingly, Resounding

Hope is one of those no-win-no-fee things, and although it needs some encouragement to survive, its existence doesn't necessarily prove anything.

- Rachel Cusk

Survive, Some, Needs, To Survive

The woman who thinks she can choose femininity, can toy with it like the social drinker toys with wine - well, she's asking for it, asking to be undone, devoured, asking to spend her life perpetrating a new fraud, manufacturing a new fake identity, only this time it's her equality that's fake.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Asking, Choose, Manufacturing

I sometimes feel that the world is a very uncivilised place where it is meant to be at its most civilised. Where it's meant to be intellectual or artistic or compassionate, it isn't, and that makes me very angry.

- Rachel Cusk

Sometimes, Very, Meant, Meant To Be

Help is dangerous because it exists outside the human economy: the only payment for help is gratitude.

- Rachel Cusk

Gratitude, Help, Outside, Payment

Leaving things behind and starting again is a way of coping with difficulties. I learnt very early in my life that I was able to leave a place and still remain myself.

- Rachel Cusk

My Life, Behind, Very, Learnt

The creativity of childhood was often surrendered amid feelings of unworthiness. So the idea that others are demanding to be given it back - to be 'taught' - is disturbing.

- Rachel Cusk

Childhood, Idea, Given, Feelings

A creative writing workshop will contain students whose ambitions and abilities, whose conceptions of literature itself, are so diverse that what they have in common - the desire to write - could almost be considered meaningless.

- Rachel Cusk

Desire, Will, Contain, Diverse

Christianity has kept itself going for centuries on hope alone, and has perpetrated all manner of naughtiness in the meantime.

- Rachel Cusk

Alone, Centuries, Itself, Meantime

An eating disorder epidemic suggests that love and disgust are being jointly marketed, as it were; that wherever the proposition might first have come from, the unacceptability of the female body has been disseminated culturally.

- Rachel Cusk

Love, Been, Epidemic, Wherever

I was born abroad, but my parents were both English. Still, those few years of separation, and then coming back to England as an outsider, did give me an ability to see the country in a slightly detached way. I suppose I was made aware of what Englishness actually is because I only became immersed in it later in life.

- Rachel Cusk

Country, Slightly, Became, Immersed

I'm particularly drawn to actors in their own little drama. I find it's that area I'm very alive to. And I don't encounter it that often. You have to be far from civilization, you have to be far from New York or London to find people who do that.

- Rachel Cusk

London, Alive, Very, Encounter

The woman who has her being in marriage and motherhood has become part of antithetical reality, revoking property from the woman who remains in a condition of intangible femininity.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Part, Intangible, Femininity

For me, a novel is always the result of my attempt to impose myself on raw circumstances. It is a concrete form of lived experience.

- Rachel Cusk

Myself, Always, Concrete, Novel

Shame is something you'll find a lot of - particularly Catholic - girls feel about their bodies, about their sexuality, about their diet, about anything you like. Shame is the way you keep them down. That's the way to crush a girl.

- Rachel Cusk

Shame, Like, Particularly, Catholic

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.

- Rachel Cusk

No Sense, I Write, Strictly

I am a good and interested mother - which has surprised me.

- Rachel Cusk

Mother, I Am, Which, Surprised

To become a mother is to learn a whole language - to relearn it, perhaps, as it was the tongue to which we were born - and hence gain entrance to a forgotten world of comprehension.

- Rachel Cusk

Learn, Tongue, Which, Comprehension

Modern morality is all about perception.

- Rachel Cusk

Modern, Morality, About, Perception

The British have always made terrible parents.

- Rachel Cusk

Always, Made, British, Terrible

As writers go, I have a skin of average thickness. I am pleased by a good review, disappointed by a bad. None of it penetrates far enough to influence the thing I write next.

- Rachel Cusk

Bad, Average, Next, Review

It's a taboo that comes back over and over, to suggest that women can feel divided - that you can love your child and want to do everything for it, and at the same time want to put it away from you and reclaim something of yourself.

- Rachel Cusk

Love, Your Child, Away, Reclaim

Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority.

- Rachel Cusk

Student, Like, Centre, Creative Writing

A feminist man is a bit like a vegetarian: it's the humanitarian principle he's defending, I suppose.

- Rachel Cusk

Vegetarian, Like, Principle, Feminist

It is living, not thinking, as a feminist that has become the challenge.

- Rachel Cusk

Challenge, Thinking, Living, Feminist

There are certain types of slightly hysterical human characters who, rather than creating, walk around with a sense of their own potential - it's as if they themselves were art objects. They feel as if their lives are written narratives, or pieces of music.

- Rachel Cusk

Own, Rather, Slightly, Potential

We who were born were not witnesses to our birth: like death, it is something we are forever after trying to catch sight of.

- Rachel Cusk

Death, Born, Like, Catch

My children are living, thinking human beings. It isn't in my power to regret them, for they belong to themselves.

- Rachel Cusk

Regret, Living, Belong, Beings

There's this really good line in 'Women in Love' where Ursula says, 'I always thought it was a sin to be unhappy.' And actually I think that's very common, it's what a lot of people feel - that you have an obligation to life to be happy if you can.

- Rachel Cusk

Love, I Think, Very, Obligation

To be optimistic about something that is absolutely unknown to you is unfounded.

- Rachel Cusk

Optimistic, Absolutely, Unknown

Feminism remains something that needs to be explained to people.

- Rachel Cusk

Needs, Feminism, Remains, Explained

The reaction to 'Aftermath' has been far worse than to 'A Life's Work,' yet I find I'm perhaps a little less touched by it. In both cases, I've coped artistically by believing the criticisms weren't right. They upset me, but they didn't challenge my understanding of how to write, nor of how morality functions in literature.

- Rachel Cusk

Upset, Been, Touched, Aftermath

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

- Rachel Cusk

Writing, More, Infinitely, Valuable

I absolutely don't dislike children - I would choose their company over adult company any time.

- Rachel Cusk

Choose, Over, Dislike, Adult

I have some pretty forceful ideas about the world - obviously I do. But I suppose I can only really speak about them from within the protection of a literary form.

- Rachel Cusk

Some, Pretty, Forceful, Suppose

Childhood, after all, is not an ending, but rather a state full of potent curiosity.

- Rachel Cusk

Curiosity, Childhood, Ending, Full

It seems to me that 'women's writing' by nature would not seek equivalence in the male world. It would be a writing that sought to express a distinction, not deny it.

- Rachel Cusk

Nature, Deny, Distinction, Male

What other grown-up gets told how to do their job so often as a writer?

- Rachel Cusk

How, Other, Often, Grown-Up

It's a pretty brutal process, having a baby.

- Rachel Cusk

Process, Pretty, Brutal, Baby

Writing is a discipline: it's almost all about holding back.

- Rachel Cusk

Writing, Holding, Almost, Almost All

How can there be so many mothers in the world but so little sense of what it might be to become one?

- Rachel Cusk

World, How, Might, Mothers

I remain fascinated by where you go as a woman once you are a mother, and if you ever come back.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Go, Remain, Fascinated

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

- Rachel Cusk

Work, Like, Concept, University

A book is not an example of 'women's writing' simply because it is written by a woman. Writing may become 'women's writing' when it could not have been written by a man.

- Rachel Cusk

Woman, Been, May, Example

Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.

- Rachel Cusk

Book, My Life, Years, I Write

If you're searching for quotes on a different topic, feel free to browse our Topics page or explore a diverse collection of quotes from various Authors to find inspiration.