Quote

I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.

Curtis Sittenfeld

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Curtis Sittenfeld
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: August 23
Author
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Cincinnati
Ohio
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld
Elizabeth Sittenfeld
Thinking
Purge
Entertain
Reader
Trying
Think

More quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld

Image
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
Image
Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
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
Image
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
Image
When you are a high school girl, there is nothing more miraculous than a high school boy.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
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
Image
To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I've had people say very dismissive things about my books, but I also feel like I probably have more readers because I'm a woman. I mean, more readers are women and more people who buy books are women, so I don't feel like it's a total disadvantage to be a female writer.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
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
Image
We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
Anyone who's really interested in anything spends time alone.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
I'm SO trying to give up meat.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
She nodded, jotting something in her notebook. You’re writing that down? Has the interview started?” Lee, whenever you’re talking to a reporter, you’re being interviewed.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Image
People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination
Curtis Sittenfeld