The thing about California is that it's kind of a dream, and I started to feel like I was living in a dream. I still feel like that. Because of that I think I've been able to realize a lot of things that were just ideas. When I was living in New York City, it's such a rat race, it's so competitive and everything is so concrete and in your face all the time. If you're like, "I'm gonna be a writer!" Everybody's like, "Yeah, you and all the other assholes on the subway." There isn't a lot of space for the detached, free-floating movement of the imagination.
Ottessa MoshfeghThink 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..."
Ottessa MoshfeghDistance 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.
Ottessa MoshfeghI don't think there's anything wrong with pity. Like if you saw a dog having just been hit by a car, you would pity that dog. But then what do you do? Do you leave it there to get run over by more cars, or do you step into traffic and hold up your hand? "Stop! An animal has been hit!" and carry the thing to safety?
Ottessa Moshfegh