Latest Marie Calloway Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• One thing about having mostly absent parents that I think was perhaps "good" for the development of my intellect/writing is that I was given almost total freedom to read/write/look at whatever I wanted. I wonder a lot about how my past experiences, particularly my negative childhood (home life and being severely bullied/ostracized throughout school) as formed my/my thoughts/my writing, though I should also note those things were far from the only thing that had an impact on me/my writing.

  Marie Calloway

  Home, Writing, School

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'm not very close to my parents. My stepfather (in my opinion) was very emotionally abusive when I was growing up and there were a lot of other issues I don't feel comfortable talking about publicly. I spent a lot of time in therapy dealing with these issues though, and I feel i'm finally starting to move past them.

  Marie Calloway

  Growing Up, Moving, Past

  Source: therumpus.net

• I feel like few things are more successful at portraying honest emotions/experiences. There also just seems to be a certain feeling/mood that I respond well to. I feel similarly about the artist Kahimi Karie and the films "An Education" and "Marie Antoinette." Anything with a strongly and unapologetically feminine point of view I tend to be interested in.

  Marie Calloway

  Successful, Artist, Views

  Source: therumpus.net

• Basically, I feel inspired by any artist that seems to want to introduce the world to their likes and perspective rather than trying to shape their interests and point of view to fit better into the world around them.

  Marie Calloway

  Artist, Views, Perspective

  Source: therumpus.net

• I admire self-awareness more than probably any other quality, and I think in terms of what qualities are "good" in a person, it's a mostly subjective opinion, so I can't see a reason to think that self-absorption is inherently a bad thing.

  Marie Calloway

  Thinking, Self, Quality

  Source: therumpus.net

• I admire Joyce Maynard a lot, specifically her memoir "At Home in the World." Her writing is beautiful and fascinating and seemed to give me validation to the idea that I could write validly in earnest about my life with (my) very feminine point of view, and also that I could unapologetically explore the bad traits of my character (which I find to be more interesting to explore than the good traits), as well as explore other concepts that interest me like private vs public personas, age gap relationships, etc.

  Marie Calloway

  Beautiful, Home, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I admire narcissism in Momus and others who "own" it and use it as a way to explore ideas/themselves and also as a form of humor. I don't think of myself as narcissistic, but I'm definitely incredibly self absorbed. I guess I wonder if seeing the world through the lens of yourself is necessarily less valid than other ways of thinking/seeing though.

  Marie Calloway

  Thinking, Self, Ideas

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't have much to say about honesty. All that I feel about it that people don't discuss as far as I know is how much effort it is to create truly honest writing, in my opinion. It requires a lot of thinking and effort.

  Marie Calloway

  Honesty, Writing, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• There's often times a big difference between what you actually thought/felt in a situation and what you think you thought/felt. You have to do a lot of work to make your thoughts/feelings possible to be understood by other people. It's very draining, though also cathartic.

  Marie Calloway

  Thinking, Differences, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• Obviously this all gets tricky/complicated when your writing reveals so much of your private/intimate life, and the nature of writing on the Internet comes with a lot of focus on your "personal brand."

  Marie Calloway

  Writing, Focus, Internet

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think I would have been a lot more miserable and discovered a lot less of things I liked if I hadn't had LiveJournal in high school. I think it's interesting how blogging seems to be shaping a new generation of writers. I feel like growing up with the Internet/blogging/other structures seems to be a reason for the similarities people see in Tao Lin's writing and other young writers, rather than direct.

  Marie Calloway

  Growing Up, School, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I want to say that of course I want my writing to be read and discussed by as many people as possible, but this is different than wanting personal, "celebrity"-like attention. I'm very introverted and sensitive and dislike being talked about, positively or negatively.

  Marie Calloway

  Writing, People, Different

  Source: therumpus.net

• I recognize that memory is far from infallible though. If I feel like I can't accurately describe something, I just leave it out. I also do things like write "he talked about ..." instead of writing direct quotes. But generally I feel like since my stories are very obviously meant to be my perception of an event rather than the objective truth this gives me a lot of leeway.

  Marie Calloway

  Memories, Writing, Giving

  Source: therumpus.net

• I used LiveJournal frequently, almost daily, since ~age 13 until ~18. I kept a personal diary there. I also participated in various "LiveJournal communities". At the risk of sounding patronizing or something, I see LiveJournal and now Tumblr as wonderful because they give young girls ways to interact with eachother and learn and talk about new interests, ideas etc as well as support eachother emotionally.

  Marie Calloway

  Girl, Ideas, Giving

  Source: therumpus.net

• As for not getting things right: I constantly rerun social situations/conversations I experience/have throughout my head, and I'm always writing them down in notebooks or in word documents/the Internet. I feel like these habits and a generally good memory of people/the interactions I have with them (due to studying people having always been my main interest in life) have lead me to being very accurate in things I write in stories/essays.

  Marie Calloway

  Notebook, Memories, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I've never written about a situation involving real people that I haven't directly taken part in. I've never made things up about other people. None of my stories were written with ill-intent towards the other people in them, even though I doubt people will believe that about "Adrien Brody."

  Marie Calloway

  Real, Believe, Taken

  Source: therumpus.net

• I often feel like that with the way I portray myself I come off as looking much worse than any of the other characters. I guess it might also be worth noting that anyone I've had as a main character in a story I've written has had full knowledge that I am a writer who writes about the people in her life.

  Marie Calloway

  Writing, Character, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• Besides the money aspect, I guess I was curious about sex work. In the way that most people are, but also because ever since I was a teen I had read feminist writers like Dworkin and Mackinnon and the way they wrote about sex work had an enormous impact on me. Was it really as horrible as they said?

  Marie Calloway

  Sex, Impact, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I guess that my opinion of writing about real people is informed by defenses of Joyce Maynard's memoir, that the experiences were a part of my life as well, and that I have the right to write about my life.

  Marie Calloway

  Real, Writing, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I guess I'm also obligated to note that the experience of sex workers who are not upper/middle class/white probably have much worse conditions than anything that's portrayed commonly in media/what I experienced.

  Marie Calloway

  Sex, Media, Class

  Source: therumpus.net

• Towards the end of it [working as an escort girl] I could feel myself drifting towards a liquor habit and I had a few minor mental breakdowns due to a what I felt like was a constant chipping away at my personhood (guys thinking I would have unprotected sex with them if they just paid me fifty more dollars, for instance) and a few abusive clients.

  Marie Calloway

  Girl, Sex, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• What i'm trying to get at is that to me nothing felt glamorous or exciting or sexually liberating about it. I also think the amount of money you can make escorting is exaggerated (it wasn't uncommon for me to see ads for escorts for 40-60$/hr where I live.)

  Marie Calloway

  Thinking, Trying, Escorting

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think in certain ways sex work has been romanticized. I can only speak from my experience, but what surprised me about escorting was how boring it mostly is. it seemed like an assembly line process of cleaning my apartment, dressing up, making awkward small talk, having mundane mechanical sex, making more awkward small talk, and then closing the door after them. There's also a lot of frustration and annoyance with it that I feel isn't discussed (a lot of flaky potential clients for instance.)

  Marie Calloway

  Sex, Thinking, Frustration

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'll be the first to admit I wasn't very happy doing what I did [escorting] nor was I very talented at it, so perhaps that's what worked to make it boring for me. However it's hard for me to imagine that a lot of young women who would enjoy and be good at being an escort.

  Marie Calloway

  Firsts, Boring, Imagine

  Source: therumpus.net

• The second guy I met on the Internet was Tom, who I dated for around 6 months, which is by far the longest relationship I've ever had as an adult. We long distance dated mostly, chatting everyday for a long time on FB chat and Skype. It's hard to imagine a more genuinely caring and kind individual. I owe a lot to him.

  Marie Calloway

  Distance, Caring, Long

  Source: therumpus.net