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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 -
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.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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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 -
I'm able to separate fiction and reality. I guess it remains to be seen if other people are.
Curtis Sittenfeld -
I always wrote from a very young age, literally from the time I learned how to read and write.
Curtis Sittenfeld -
In some ways I think it would be very dignified if I went away for twenty years and then wrote my fourth book.
Curtis Sittenfeld -
There are always interesting, innovative, dynamic stories being written and being published. They're not always being prominently published, but they're being published.
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
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I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
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 -
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.
Curtis Sittenfeld -
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.
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 -
No book I publish will be perfect, but I need to feel I've taken it as far as I can.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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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 -
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 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 -
The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.
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 -
When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.
Curtis Sittenfeld
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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 -
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 -
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.
Curtis Sittenfeld -
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