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I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

Curtis Sittenfeld

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Curtis Sittenfeld
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: August 23
Author
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Cincinnati
Ohio
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld
Elizabeth Sittenfeld
Characters
Created
Theory
Question
Comes
Authors
Doe
Male
Character
Males
Much
Female

More quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld

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We have to make mistakes, its how we learn compassion for others
Curtis Sittenfeld
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If you knew where your happiness came from, it gave you patience. You realized that a lot of the time, you were just waiting out a situation, and that took the pressure off you no longer looked to every interaction to actually do something for you.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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Ordinarily, of course, I thought it best to remain inconspicuous, but the gesture had a certain irresistable theatricaility, and an inevitablility. Sometimes you can feel the pull of what other people want from you, and you sacrifice yourself, you risk seeming odd or sunsavory, to keep them entertained.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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She really does like him, she likes lying next to him, she wants to be around him when you get down to it, can you say that about many people?
Curtis Sittenfeld
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Before and after... I heard a thousand times that a boy, or a man, can't make you happy, that you have to be happy on your own before you can be happy with another person. All I can say is, I wish it were true.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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At that time in my life, no conclusion was a bad conclusion. Something ended, and you stopped wishing and worrying. You could consider your mistakes, and you might be embarrassed by them, but the box was sealed, the door was shut, you were no longer immersed in the confusing middle.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I gave people the benefit of the doubt, thinking, so many people that appear very calm and even boring must have all these wild emotions and crazy ideas.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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The best part of being a writer for me is immersing myself in a fictional world, which is the opposite of being on social media. At the same time, if no one ever read my work, if I was writing solely for myself, I bet it would be lonely and a lot less fun.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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If I'm at somebody's house and they have magazines on the table and people are chatting, I feel almost a physical urge to start reading the magazines instead of talking to people.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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And I am pretty sure that's the point of reading fiction -- so someone else can say in a way you never would have something you recognize immediately.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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It's never that hard for me to imagine what it must feel like to be someone else, whether it's an American teenage girl or a Japanese octogenarian man
Curtis Sittenfeld
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In life we're most hell-bent on proving things that we're not really sure are true.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I think I write what's interesting to me, and so if I'm reading I like to have a very thorough idea of a character in a book that's by someone else.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and then I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then?
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I feel that Pride and Prejudice is an incredibly well constructed novel on every level. The dialogue is great. The character development is great. The plotting is great. The pacing is great. The language is great.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I feel like people who criticize authors for being self-promotional fail to recognize that a lot of times their ability to continue writing hinges on sales and recognition. Some of it is for fun, some of it is for ego, but a lot of it is just writers trying to ensure longevity to their career.
Curtis Sittenfeld