Curtis Sittenfeld Quotes

Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.

There was a way in which my grandmother's true self was not these guests' business; no one's true self was the business of more than a very small number of family members or close friends.

I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and then I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then?

I heard Gillian say, with a laugh, “At this point, does anyone expect the liberals not to be total hypocrites?” She was oblivious to the possibility that perhaps not everyone present shared her views, and I thought, You’re sixteen. How can you already be a Republican?

All things being equal, why not be married to a rich man? (Somewhere, Hannah thinks, there must be a needlepoint pillow asking this very question in a cleverer way.)

...if he didn't fully understand where I came from, he understood who I was now - he knew how well done I liked my steak, knew the color of my toothbrush, the expression I made when I realized I'd forgotten to roll up my car window before it rained.

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.

She has always been a bystander in family destruction, never realizing she herself possessed the capacity to inflict it.

You don't make waves unless there's a reason, and it better be good. Because once you do, that's it. You're a trouble make, and they never think of you any other way.

Mama!' Rosie tugged on my shirt. 'This broccoli is tasty and wonderful'.