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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Imitation

You

Try

" 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. "

" I just write the books that I think I would want to read. "

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

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

" For 'Gender Studies,' I wrote that story in May and June of 2016. People have said to me, 'Oh, it's a political allegory,' and I think, 'Sure.' The political stuff is definitely there. But that's why I like fiction; there can be lots of different things going on, and it's all intertwined, and you can't separate out what's in what category. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

People

Political

" I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women. "

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

How

Enjoy

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Time

Life

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

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" Sometimes, there can be a slightly condescending assumption that anything unlikable about a female character is a mistake, as if they're a contestant in a beauty pageant and have to seem charming and upbeat all the time. "

" My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology. "

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Get

Problems

" 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 don't think everyone is equally haunted by high school, but I also don't think it's unusual to be. "

" 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. "

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

Women

Men

" A lot of times, in a store, clothes appear strange to me, their cuts or flourishes arbitrary. Why is this look stylish now? How long will it be stylish for? It's slightly embarrassing to admit this - because, as a novelist, I'm supposed to be observant - but I'm flummoxed by the way other women dress. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Women

Look

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

" 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. "

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

" There are always interesting, innovative, dynamic stories being written and being published. They're not always being prominently published, but they're being published. "

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Special

Try

" I never write something and consciously embed political commentary or any other kind of commentary. I just try to get the characters into a room or out of a room, or onto the plane, or through the grocery store. The political stuff, the class stuff, the gender stuff, is in the air, it's in their interactions, because it's there for all of us. "

" 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. "

" 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. "