Quotes from Curtis Sittenfeld

I'm so trying to give up meat.

Weirdly, even as I became more confident as a writer and as a person, I completely lost faith in my own ability to shop for clothes.

I think there are people who think 'high school was the peak of my life,' and there are people who think it was dreadful, and then, I think most people are somewhere in between. I do think that it's normal to experience strong emotions during that time, and I think those emotions stay with you.

There's an ongoing 'water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' situation at my house in terms of both pens and paper.

I grew up in Cincinnati, the birthplace of the creamiest and most delicious ice cream with the hugest chocolate chips. Graeter's used to be available only regionally, but an extravagant thing you could do was overnight-ship six pints to another state, in dry ice.

I don't think I anticipated supporting myself as a writer... I expected I would have to be a teacher or a journalist, that I wouldn't just write full time. It's such a part of my life, and in some ways, it's a very unromantic part of my life. It's almost, to me, like breathing. I don't think about whether I like it or not.

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

I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.

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.

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

In general, when any of us get outraged by relatively minor pop-cultural phenomena, I suspect it's a way of relaxing and not focussing on more daunting and intractable problems, whether personal or social.

The nightmare reviewer is the reviewer who has some sort of agenda that precludes him or her responding sincerely to the book. Often, that agenda is seeming clever and/or taking someone who has received more than her fair share of attention down a notch.

Of course, I didn't imagine then that I could have had a real relationship with any guy. I thought that by virtue of being me I was disqualified.

I'm aware more than I was before I had books published that any review is a bit arbitrary - it's not really, say, 'The New York Times' that's authoritatively weighing in on the quality of a book, though it seems this way to the public.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.

We all make mistakes, don't we? But if you can't forgive yourself, you'll always be an exile in your own life.

I see 'Eligible' as a homage, and I see 'Pride and Prejudice' as a perfect book. You can dispute whether this project is a good idea, but you can't dispute my fondness for the novel.

No book I publish will be perfect, but I need to feel I've taken it as far as I can.

In 2013, before the publication of my fourth novel, I met with a stylist at Nordstrom. Since then, I've rarely shopped for 'event clothes' on my own. I usually do it with my sisters or a friend; if I'm alone, I take pictures of myself in the dressing room and text them to my sisters.

I wanted my life to start - but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.

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

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.

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.

I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.