259 Quotes by Curtis Sittenfeld

Children are nothing but a problem people create and then congratulate themselves on solving.

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?

How quickly we damn ourselves when we start to talk, how small and inglorious we always sound.

But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else.

People to whom a terrible thing has never happened trust fate, the notion that what's meant to be, will be. The rest of us know better.

Yet surely she was as culpable as he was; recalling her casual speculation about when Jasper's wife's grandmother might die and thereby free Jasper and Susan to divorce, Liz wondered if a stronger sign of a relationship's essential corruptness could exist than for its official realization to hinge on the demise of another human being.

You don't make waves unless there's a reason, and it better be good. Because once you do, that's it. You're a trouble make, and they never think of you any other way.

...if he didn't fully understand where I came from, he understood who I was now -- he knew how well done I liked my steak, knew the color of my toothbrush, the expression I made when I realized I'd forgotten to roll up my car window before it rained.

Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places.