259 Quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld

His ambitions exceed his talent.

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?

In general, I have no desire to ever have another conversation about Hillary Clinton, to debate the role her gender played. I’m not sure I want to have any conversation about sexism. If someone doesn’t see that gender played a huge role, why would I waste my time trying to convince them?

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.

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?

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.

It was generally less shocking to Liz that twenty years after high school she was still her essential self, the self she’d grown up as, unencumbered by spouse or child, than that nearly everyone else had changed, moved on, and multiplied. After.

Since Liz’s adolescence, when viewing television commercials that celebrated the ostensibly unconditional love of mothers for their children, or on spotting merchandise in stores that honored this unique bond with poems or effusive declarations – picture frames, magnets, oven mitts – she had felt like a foreign exchange student observing the customs of another country.

I’d think, One of the times she leaves will be the last time I see her. It destroyed me. I didn’t want us to have a last time, and that was how I realized I’d fallen in love with you.