Quotes from Curtis Sittenfeld

Sometimes it amazes me how much these defining parts of our lives hinge on chance.

There was a way in which my grandmother's true self was not these guests' business; no one's true self was the business of more than a very small number of family members or close friends.

I have been granted the terrible privilege of deciding what would have happened with no one left to contradict me. And maybe I am absolutely wrong.

Why would I want to stew in my aloneness?" "Because you're scared." "What am I scared of?" "Getting hurt. Knowing another person really well and another person knowing you really well. Feelings you can't make fun of. Interactions that go on for long enough that they maybe turn a little awkward or a little tedious instead of ending after ten minutes with a zinger.

Well-- My mother paused, and her tone was reflective in that way that is inevitably sad, because the past is sad. What I remember, she said, is that you were always such a dear little girl.

Could it be that Noah was one of those rare guys who didn't essentially dislike or mock women, and who also didn't ignore our existence, and who also didn't see us primarily as objects of lust? That he was weirdly, disarmingly fine with us?

By the time we met up again, she'd be able to hand her reaction to me as a tidy package: a single square of lasagna in a sealed Tupperware container as opposed to a squalid kitchen with tomato sauce splattered on the counters. And I wouldn't have to be there while she got it in order.

I am filled with gratitude at the astonishing fact of being married to someone I enjoy talking to, someone with whom I can't imagine running out of things to say.

When I think of Henry and Oliver and Mike, I feel as if they are three different models - templates, almost - and I wonder if they are the only three in the world: the man who is with you completely, the man who is with you but not with you, the man who will get as close to you as he can without ever becoming yours. It would be arrogant to claim no other dynamics exist just because I haven't experienced them, but I have to say that I can't imagine what they are. I hope that I am wrong.

And I want a woman in that seat. Whether it's Alan Dixon or Joe Biden or George Bush, I'm so tired of these idiot men getting to make up the rules for the rest of us. They're not smarter. They're not nicer. They don't have better judgment. They're just men.

And really, wasn't this endless ruminating over my own likability in itself a thing only a woman would do? Did Bill—or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul—ever ponder their likability, or did they simply go after what they wanted? Did Bill ever stop to think about which of us was more qualified, did he question his own motives for entry into the race? The idea was laughable.

I decided we should get married no more of this running-through-the-rain shit. We should live in the same place, sleep in the same bed at night, wake up together in the morning, and whenever there's a tornado, I can take care of you and watch Baseball at the same time.

Plus, it made me nervous, because was this the time in my own life before I found someone to love and had a family and looked back longingly on my youthful freedom? Or was it the beginning of what my life would be like forever?

I think adults forget just how much faith teenagers can have in them, just how willing to believe that adults, by virtue of being adults, know absolute truths, or that absolute truths are even knowable.

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.

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?

People are complicated, she continued, and the ones who aren't are boring. Then maybe I'm boring. We looked at each other, and in a genuinely sad voice, she said, Maybe you are.

Whatever you are, be a good one. -Curtis Sittenfeld (American Wife)

My heart clutched - it was one of those moments when you feel time is a rug that's been yanked out from under you; everything around you has changed so gradually that it is only all at one you look up and realize how different your life has become.

A reality show isn't unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, then," Mr. Bennet said. "In that they both require nominations.

All things being equal, why not be married to a rich man? (Somewhere, Hannah thinks, there must be a needlepoint pillow asking this very question in a cleverer way.)

He seemed simultaneously like a stranger and someone she knew extremely well; there was either an enormous amount to say or nothing at all.

His ambitions exceed his talent.

I bet things would be easier for you if you either realized you're not that weird or decided that being weird isn't bad.