Curtis Sittenfeld quotes

Anyone who's really interested in anything spends time alone. (Curtis Sittenfeld)

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

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.

Curtis Sittenfeld

I always worried someone would notice me, and then when no one did, I felt lonely.

Curtis Sittenfeld

... nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

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)

Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places.

Curtis Sittenfeld

What greater happiness is there than the privilege of being bored together?

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

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

I feel like a lot of life is distasteful and embarrassing. And you just push through it. You fix what you can, and you let time pass.

Curtis Sittenfeld

The better you learn to take care of yourself, the less you settle for being around people who can't or won't treat you as well as you're accustomed.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

We have to make mistakes, it's how we learn compassion for others.

Curtis Sittenfeld

If a man wants to be romantically involved with you, he tries to kiss you. That's the entire story, and if he doesn't kiss you, there is never a reason to wait around for him.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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)

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

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn't exist to accommodate you, which... is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when the occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Previous
1 (Current)
2
3
Next

Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld - Image

Photo: Serine Ben Brahim, CC BY-SA 4.0

Occupation: American Writer
Born: August 23, 1975
Quotes count: 59

Related authors

Laura Welch Bush 46

American First Lady

Jane Austen 599

British Writer

J. Courtney Sullivan 18

American Novelist

Donna Tartt 108

American Novelist

Paula McLain 25

Author

Melissa Bank 16

American Author

Jennifer Weiner 53

American Writer

Gillian Schieber Flynn 145

American Author

Joanna Trollope 20

English Novelist

Meg Wolitzer 65

American Writer