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" 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. "

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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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Regret

Early

Different

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

" 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 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. "

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

" 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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

You

Know

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Feel

Curious

" 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. "

" I'm so trying to give up meat. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Give

Meat

" 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

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

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

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

How

Enjoy

" 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 have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Much

" 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

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

" 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 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. "