A Quote by Mary MacLane
Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things.
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I look at pictures of you because I am afraid that you would notice me staring in real life. I looked at your picture today for countless minutes. It is closer than I’ll ever get to you for real. I felt like I was looking at a captured animal at a safe distance. If you knew I was doing this, you would feel sickened and frightened. That’s why you’ll never know. Years will go by and you’ll never know. I will never say the things that I want to say to you. I know the damage it would do. I love you more than I hate my loneliness and pain.
He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to.
The moment I said I'd finished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone who'd got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because I'd written Harry Potter. That would have been why.
Those are all real things that I experienced, not with [my daughters] growing up but with the, you know - I'm trying not to step into something and get a call, "Dad why'd you say that?"! But we'd go to games [where score wasn't kept], and I'd get it, but I wouldn't get it, because I think there's a real value in winners and losers, in not everybody getting a trophy - it makes you work hard, you appreciate what it takes, to say, "Why didn't we win?" You shouldn't be condemned for losing.
I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of the theory craziness. It had a big part in why I ended up becoming a writer rather than a scholar, because I thought, "I just can't play these games." I was interested in literature because I loved literature, and so much of the theoretical positioning, at that moment 25 years ago, was antagonistic to literature. You know, trying to show that Jane Austen is a terrible person because she wasn't thinking about colonialism.
I think I would choose to do things because they are interesting, because I like a character or because it's very well-written. Or because it makes sense.
Getting on 'SNL' wasn't just about getting cast. I had written all this stuff in my audition, and I wrote several things that got on the air. But to me, I've never been interested in being picked. So when I do get sent things, most of the time I do pass on them because it doesn't feel like it would be fulfilling.
A lot of things that should not be written were written without checking with me, things that were not in good taste. That hurt me. That is why I stopped talking to the press. Because they didn't want to ask me. They just wanted to write what they felt like.
All the unimaginative assholes in the world who imagine that Shakespeare couldn't have written Shakespeare because it was impossible from what we know about Shakespeare of Stratford that such a man would have had the experience to imagine such things - well, this denies the very thing that separates Shakespeare from almost every other writer in the world: an imagination that is untouchable and nonstop.
I've had statements made - 'Who in the heck wants to hear a 60-year-old singer?' That statement was made - it's disheartening, you know, because you say, 'Well, hey, why should a guy feel like that about it?'
There were days when I would just go home and cry because it was that hard, but I didn't want to give up just because things got hard, just because I was a mom.
All one wants to do is make a small, finished, polished, burnished, beautiful object . . . I mean, that's all one wants to do. One has nothing to say about the world, or society, or morals or politics or anything else. One just wants to get the damn thing done, you know? Kafka had it right when he said that the artist is the man who has nothing to say. It's true. You get the thing done, but you don't actually have anything to communicate, apart from the object itself.
I know most of my records are real good but I know that there are definitely things I would've changed at the end of the day. I work on things forever, and there are things I wish I didn't do, but ultimately I know the records are good. I kind of let go of big expectations, maybe because hopefully that means if I don't have them, that it'll do really well, but you just never know.
I don't say that I'm the best in the country, because I always criticize myself so hard. There are so many things I can say are wrong with my game, and someone can sit there and say, 'Well no, this, this and this are good.' I'm just hard on myself.
There was a stage in my career, especially with standup, where I felt, because I didn't know why I was doing well, that anyone who would tell me anything; I was sort of like, 'What did they say? Yeah, I'll take that advice.' Now I'm a bit more careful who I choose to listen to.
I can understand why people would want to stay on the road because you create your own bubble. You almost don't live in the real world. Just to have the things that are with you is fine.
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