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I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

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
Special
Settle
Hours
Ritual
Write
Minimum
Writing
Settling
Trying
Truly
Really
Unless
Rituals
Fiction
Concentrating
Takes
Mode

More quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld

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To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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After I’d told her – the mall, the taxi, Cross stroking my hair – she said, ‘Did he kiss you?’ ‘John and Martin totally would have seen that,’ I said, and as I felt myself implying the circumstances had prevented our kissing, I thought maybe this was why you told stories to other people – for how their possibilities enlarged in the retelling.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I don't know what it is about human beings but most of us really like reading about or observing sexual tension and romance. It's just so much fun. I don't know if there is some Darwinian thing in us that really responds to that, but I think the most memorable scenes to me in books and movies are the ones where a couple is about to kiss.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
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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I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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There are people we treat wrong and later we're prepared to treat other people right. Perhaps this sounds mercenary, but I feel grateful for these trial relationships, and I would like to think it all evens out - surely, unknowingly, I have served as practice for other people.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I wanted my life to start - but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.
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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I heard Gillian say, with a laugh, At this point, does anyone expect the liberals not to be total hypocrites? She was oblivious to the possibility that perhaps not everyone present shared her views, and I thought, You're sixteen. How can you already be a Republican?
Curtis Sittenfeld
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Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, I need a little more psychological realism.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I guess because twins have this mystique, and triplets - I think the normal sibling connection potentially can be very powerful, and there's this idea that it's even more powerful. It really is, not just someone like me, but another version of me.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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If you’re a parent in 2013, you have to get your hands on this book. Wise, engrossing, and so real that I fear Senior has been spying inside my house, All Joy is a must-read for those of us whose lives have been enriched and derailed by having kids.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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In some ways I think it would be very dignified if I went away for twenty years and then wrote my fourth book.
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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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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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