Curtis Sittenfeld Quotes
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
Quotes to Explore
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If only one in 1,000 people that I talk to goes on to write a good book, that's one more good book that I've helped along... and maybe it will be a book I love myself five or 10 years down the line.
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When I was a little girl, I told everyone I was going to marry a very clever scientist and have ten children. I would always draw the children, and they included blond-haired twin boys whom I named Theodore and Frederick: Teddy and Freddy for short.
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If you love attention and have a pretty decent voice, that's a pretty good combination.
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I wrote poetry before I wrote songs, and T.S. Eliot was my inspiration. I love his honesty and try to bring that to my own songwriting.
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One half who graduate from college never read another book.
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When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.
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In Montreal, I kept thinking, 'Pay attention: this is the Olympics! It only happens once every four years!'
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My character in 'Batman v Superman' isn't supposed to be Japanese, but director Zack Snyder said he'd seen me in 'Wolverine' and had to get me in the film somehow. Hearing that was like music to my ears.
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I never want to write a book just to tell a story. There is always something deeper going on.
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A fighter lives in his training camp, and I'm not always paying attention to what is happening on the outside. But I do know the Mexican people and the Mexican-American people in this country are very hard-working people. That's my only comment about Donald Trump.
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I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.
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I am an author, and like many in my profession, I am also a traveling salesman, going all over in an attempt to persuade people to spend twenty-five dollars on a hardcover book by me.
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Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.
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I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.
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I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?
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A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.
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What I look for in any book is an argument, based on evidence, that changes the way I think about something important.
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My only way of getting my uncles' attention or aunts' attention or whoever's attention was by dancing and singing around the house.
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Wagner's philosophy had absolutely nothing to do with Bruckner. Bruckner hadn't written a single word against Jews. Wagner's book on the Jews was one of the most infamous books of the 19th century.
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It's harder to build than destroy. To build is to engage and change. In jazz, we call progressing harmonies changes. Changes are like obstacles on a speed course. They demand your attention and require you to be present. They are coming...they are here..... and then they are gone. It's how life comes. Each moment is a procession from the future into the past and the sweet spot is always the present. Live in that sweet spot. Be present.
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In the current climate, we live in a pessimistic and non-idealistic world.
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I started off doing fiction in 1993. It didn't occur to me to do nonfiction because it wasn't a thing yet. So I was bumbling around, writing short stories, and then I took a nonfiction workshop, and I realized that this was what I was supposed to do.
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Don't put yourself on a pedestal. Because it's very easy for someone to knock you off. It's balance.
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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
