I’m drawn in some strangely natural way to immersing myself in a milieu whose rules I don’t understand, where there are things you can’t access simply by being intelligent or doing well in school. – Rachel Kushner
Eventually, I grew out of my interest in motorcycles because they’re quite dangerous. I don’t ride them anymore. But I have this history. – Rachel Kushner
I love the novels of Didion and Bret Ellis and consider them L.A. writers because they write about L.A. – Rachel Kushner
I don’t pay attention to auction prices. Nothing interests me less. One of the benefits of not being an artist is I don’t have to navigate the social hierarchies of the art world as a person of desire. I don’t need anything. I live in a different way. – Rachel Kushner
I’m hesitant to ever take on the crest of the veteran. So I don’t know who I am to warn the younger writer about the perils to come. I think maybe the most dangerous influence is to think you have all the answers and should be giving counsel. – Rachel Kushner
Happiness is a mysterious concept. It seems to work best as futurity: at that point I will be happy, et cetera. I feel like I experience small pieces of joy day to day. – Rachel Kushner
Citizenship and ethnicity can become, in certain contexts, restrictive, and perhaps that’s one reason I was interested in people who feel compelled to mask their origins and thereby circumvent the restrictions. – Rachel Kushner
I have crashed on a motorcycle that was going at 140mph, so I know what it feels like. – Rachel Kushner
When one is the type of writer who cares about the meaning of the historically specific setting, the history itself is not something that I would call backdrop. It’s not window dressing for a timeless relationship about love and betrayal. For me, the setting and the specific history are active co-agents with me in trying to form the novel. – Rachel Kushner
I don’t think a woman riding a motorcycle thinks of herself as doing something that has sex appeal. I think she’s trying to replicate for herself an experience that she sees men having. – Rachel Kushner
