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 More Quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld More Quotes From 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 situation pressure waiting I feel like as I've gotten older I've unfortunately come to the decision that a lot of people who seem normal and boring maybe are normal and boring. Curtis Sittenfeld normal decision people 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 sacrifice risk people And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement. To spend a Saturday afternoon mopping your kitchen floor while listening to opera on the radio, and to go that night to an Indian restaurant with a friend and be home by nine o'clock - these are enough. They are gifts. Curtis Sittenfeld appreciate home night High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified. Curtis Sittenfeld intense high-school school I like it when characters are some combination of appealing and maybe flawed or self-interested. I think in terms of scenes, and what I want a scene to achieve, and I think that the psychological realism arises from that. Curtis Sittenfeld self character thinking 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 really-deep novel people 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 reading writing book I think it's significantly easier to be a female writer today than in the early 1800's. That said, it's hard to imagine almost anyone who knows anything about publishing disagreeing with the statement that women writers today are often taken much less seriously than men writers. But it's hard to quantify, and even define, what being taken seriously means. Curtis Sittenfeld taken men mean 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 mean book people There are a lot of things in the world that are a lot weirder than psychic abilities, that we accept as true. Curtis Sittenfeld psychics accepting world I'm not afraid of writing about sensitive subjects, but I want to be careful how I do so and I know not all readers will think I have been, of course. Curtis Sittenfeld sensitive writing thinking Of course a magazine is usually more interesting than a conversation, because so much more time and preparation has gone into it. Curtis Sittenfeld preparation gone interesting 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 reading talking people I just like to inhabit a character really deeply. Curtis Sittenfeld really-deep character In life we're most hell-bent on proving things that we're not really sure are true. Curtis Sittenfeld bent hell prove 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 sibling powerful thinking I think I would have liked to have been a twin... Sometimes my sisters and I get mistaken for twins, and I always take it as a compliment. Curtis Sittenfeld twins sometimes thinking There's a lot that's not explained about the universe. And psychic-ness is not stranger than that. Curtis Sittenfeld psychics universe stranger I liked the idea of giving Eligible a feminist flavor. While I do think that in Pride and Prejudice, Liz Bennet is very bold, she is also very restricted in terms of what's appropriate for her to do and the ways it's appropriate for her to behave. One of the differences between Pride and Prejudice and Eligible is that my female characters take more initiative in their romantic lives. Curtis Sittenfeld pride character thinking
