Quotes from Curtis Sittenfeld

But the Midwest: It is quietly lovely, not preening with the need to have its attributes remarked on. It is the place I am calmest and most myself.

And now I knew myself to be generous with encouragement only when I either did not want the thing the other person sought of did not believe the person would really get it.

I was six years old when Congress gave women the right to vote. I've been waiting for you ever since.

A sense of humor is always a bonus. As with dinner companions, so it is with short stories.

A dystopian story must not merely be dystopian; it must also be a story. Premise can only get you so far.

You don't need anyone else's approval or permission to enjoy the magic of writing.

Maybe life isn't about the absence of embarrassment, it's about the mastery of embarrassment.

Dispatches and warnings from this side of the fame fence tend to go ignored, dismissed as either whining or false modesty; if they weren't ignored, if people listened, no one would ever again seek attention. But they always do, they strive and strive, hoping one day they, too, will have the luxury of lamenting their high profile.

suppressed kind. What I wanted to know (it was useless, and adolescent as well)

In situations that make you nervous, do your best and proceed; others before you have also been nervous.

And the things you said, the walk from chapel to the schoolhouse, your backpack, tests, these were a bridge running above the rushing water of what you actually felt. The goal was: learn to ignore what's down below. Fine if you met someone else who was the same as you, but you had to realize that nothing another person could do would make you feel better about any of it.

even across class lines that Black women and their babies are much likelier to die in childbirth because of racism/bad healthcare.

There were many terrible moments, a lifetime of terrible moments really, which is not the same as terrible lifetime.

the idea of him had sometimes made me nervous but the reality of him always comforted me.

But she actually was glad to have identified the one thing about Jasper she'd change, because it was similar to realizing what you'd forgotten to take on a trip, and if it was only perfume, as opposed to your driver's license, you were relieved.

It was so nice to rest in the moment without pushing it further, to feel its possibilities rather than its limitation.

I take it you don't believe in love at first sight.' 'Does anyone over the age of thirteen? Do you?' 'I don't, no,' Darcy said. 'But I don't rule out for others what I haven't experienced first hand.

Good manners means accommodating the person you were with.

It is not a camera, or a reporter, that makes something, real and genuine; more often, a camera or a reporter does the opposite.

The problem is that when I don't project my voice, the feedback is that I don't seem sufficiently tough. But when I do project it, the feedback is that I'm angry. I have a diagnosis, Nan had said. You're female

You never know the nature of another couple's marriage, do you?

This was the problem with me - I didn't know how to talk to people without asking them questions. Some people seemed to find me peculiar and some people were so happy to discuss themselves that they didn't even notice, but either way, it made conversation draining. While the other person's mouth moved, I'd try to think of the next thing to ask.

money and Republicans and sausage did not strike me as a particularly tempting combination.

She told me that we'd never know if he'd taken too much medicine by mistake or on purpose but that really there wasn't much of a difference because even if he'd taken too much on purpose, it had been because he'd believed more medicine would make him feel better.