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" 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. "

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" 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

Interesting

Change

Perspective

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

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

Give

Meat

" For most of my life - well, maybe half of my life, but basically until I was in my mid-20s - I wrote stories. From the time I was 5 or 6 until I was 25. And I read a lot of stories during that time. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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

" 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 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. "

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

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

Curtis Sittenfeld

How

Enjoy

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

I Believe

Moral

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

" 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. "