Quotes from Curtis Sittenfeld

Of course I know my characters are unlikable sometimes or have prejudices. It's not as if I'm thinking they're so endearing all the time. I guess it's much more interesting to me to write someone who is a combination of good and bad qualities because that's what people are like in real life.

I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.

Anyone who's really interested in anything spends time alone.

Of course a magazine is usually more interesting than a conversation, because so much more time and preparation has gone into it.

In general, I believe it's fine to have impassioned conversations about Gwyneth Paltrow, but those of us who do so should admit it's a recreational activity and not a moral referendum.

I enjoy reading tips about how to be more organized, and I rarely implement them.

Everything 'Atonement' does, it does incredibly well, including depicting characters of varying ages and temperaments and showing the intensity of early romantic love and connection and the very different intensity of haunting regret.

I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting.

I'm able to separate fiction and reality. I guess it remains to be seen if other people are.

Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try.

I should probably be careful admitting this, but sometimes, when my characters are having a disagreement, it's a disagreement I'm having with myself. I can see both sides of the argument.

High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.

Something that's interesting is how my perspective on different events can change over time even though the events themselves haven't changed. As I get older, I interpret something differently, or I can even interpret a person differently.

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.

I always wrote from a very young age, literally from the time I learned how to read and write.

There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

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.

In some ways I think it would be very dignified if I went away for twenty years and then wrote my fourth book.

I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating.

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.

The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.

Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.

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.