Curtis Sittenfeld
Curtis Sittenfeld
Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeldis an American writer. She is author of five novels: Prep, the tale of a Massachusetts prep school; The Man of My Dreams, a coming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love; American Wife, a fictional story loosely based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush; Sisterland, which tells the story of identical twins with psychic powers; and the forthcoming Eligible, which is a contemporary retelling of Pride and Prejudice, as well as a number of short...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
I had the fleeting thought then that we are each of us pathetic in one way or another, and the trick is to marry a person whose patheticness you can tolerate.
And I am pretty sure that's the point of reading fiction -- so someone else can say in a way you never would have something you recognize immediately.
I have always found the times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters. That reminder that it can be different, that you need not go through your life unknown but that you probably still will--that is the part that's almost unbearable.
Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.
If you knew where your happiness came from, it gave you patience. You realized that a lot of the time, you were just waiting out a situation, and that took the pressure off; you no longer looked to every interaction to actually do something for you.
Of course, I didn't imagine then that I could have had a real relationship with any guy. I thought that by virtue of being me I was disqualified.
I actually liked the disolation of winter; it was the season when it was okay to be unhappy. If I were to ever kill myself, I thought it would be in the summer.
But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.
Of course a magazine is usually more interesting than a conversation, because so much more time and preparation has gone into it.
I wanted my life to start - but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.
... it struck me as so hard to believe I was really getting what I wanted; it was always easier to feel the lack of something than the thing itself.
I feel like as I've gotten older I've unfortunately come to the decision that a lot of people who seem normal and boring maybe are normal and boring.
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
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