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Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.

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
Never
Novelist
Wished
Novelists
Personally
Male
Males

More quotes by 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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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
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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 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
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I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
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 guess in life I find people who, at first glance, appear to be very typical or average, whatever that means, and then turn out to have hidden qualities.
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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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 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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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 actually liked the disolation of winter it was the season when it was okay to be unhappy. If I were to ever kill myself, I thought it would be in the summer.
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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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'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
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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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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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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 had the fleeting thought then that we are each of us pathetic in one way or another, and the trick is to marry a person whose patheticness you can tolerate.
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