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

Curtis Sittenfeld

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" 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

" I grew up in Cincinnati, the birthplace of the creamiest and most delicious ice cream with the hugest chocolate chips. Graeter's used to be available only regionally, but an extravagant thing you could do was overnight-ship six pints to another state, in dry ice. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" There's an ongoing 'water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' situation at my house in terms of both pens and paper. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

" I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

" 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

" 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. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

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

Curtis Sittenfeld