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e778dce
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But I should note, for all my resistance to organized religion, that I don't believe Charlie could have quit drinking without it. It provided him with a way to structure his behavior, and a way to explain that behavior, both past and present, to himself. Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose--what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events? -- and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my fait..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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9bcaf2a
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she might even have felt that self-congratulatory pride that heterosexual white people are known to experience due to proximate diversity.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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951288a
|
Since I was a small girl, I have lived inside this cottage, shelted by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering--I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege allows, the way my own husband and now my daughter are blind. It is a statement of fact and not a judgement to say Charlie and Ella's minds aren't oriented in that direction; in a way, it absolves them, whereas the unlucky have knocked on the door of my conscious..
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empathy
politics
ethics
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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a5b2986
|
I have been granted the terrible privilege of deciding what would have happened with no one left to contradict me. And maybe I am absolutely wrong.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4f64192
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As they faced each other, there was between them such a profusion of vitality that it was hard to know what to do with it; they kept making eye contact, looking away, making eye contact again. At last--surely he was thinking something similar and she was simply giving voice to the sentiment--she said, "Want to go to your place and have hate sex?"
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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f639e86
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It would in retrospect appear to be a stop on a narrative path that was inevitable, but this is only because most events, most paths, feel inevitable in retrospect.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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de5f21f
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He seemed simultaneously like a stranger and someone she knew extremely well; there was either an enormous amount to say or nothing at all.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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c0e3167
|
Maybe my homesickness was a form of prescience because when I look back, it's the circumstances of this very car ride that I recognize as irretrievable: the experience of driving nowhere in particular with my sister, both of us seventeen years old, the open windows causing our hair to blow wildly; that feeling of being unencumbered; that confidence that our futures would inform the way we wanted them to and our real lives were just beginnin..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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ffbc223
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My own preferences had little bearing on the outcome of events.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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796a7c5
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There then occurred the first and only paranormal incident of my marriage. Charlie shifted in his sleep, opened his eyes, looked at me and, without preamble, said, "You have to forgive yourself for killing that boy." . . . "For your own sake but for mine, too," he was saying, and his voice was hoarse from sleep yet also certain and insistent. "If you don't forgive yourself, you're making that accident too important, you're making him too im..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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b4c8dca
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She is shocked, and also afraid to look at him. As he turns the page, he's describing a dessert whose name he cannot remember but which arrived at the table in flames. She feels utterly bewildered. This is who her father is: someone tickled by the existence of sushi. Someone who takes pictures inside a restaurant. Her father is cheesy. Even his handsomeness, she thinks, looking at one of the few photos in which he appears, is of a certain h..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4732ae4
|
I am filled with gratitude at the astonishing fact of being married to someone I enjoy talking to, someone with whom I can't imagine running out of things to say.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4a91769
|
Profii de aici le-au vazut pe toate. Noi ne percepem ca individualitati distincte, dar in ochii lor nu suntem decat o masa de nevoi adolescentine." - Gates Medkowski"
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d573893
|
eram prea tanara atunci sa-mi dau seama cum simple considerente geografice sau temporale puteau sa separe oamenii. Acestea sunt motivele pentru care n-ar fi trebuit sa ma intreb ce m-am intrebat mai apoi, in timp ce ma uitam la reflexiile noastre sparte in oglinda - daca exista oare ceva, chiar si ghinionul, care san e tina legate una de cealalta in toti anii care aveau sa urmeze.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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5ab5bc5
|
era greu sa-mi imaginez ca m-as fi putut simti vreodata ca o tipa "misto", dar ma simteam ca o persoana de care eu insami as fi fost intrigata in primii mei ani acolo."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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25c1628
|
but then I think how I grew sick of kissing him. How can you spend your life with a person you're sick of kissing?
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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6ca6d93
|
I enjoyed making them, and if it's great reverence you're looking for, or earnest expressions of gratitude - well, then you don't work with kids.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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fa32044
|
See, I always forget this about you," he says, and even now, long after we first lost our privacy, I can't help wondering who's overhearing him. "Every decade, you like to pin me to the ground, pull open my mouth, and take a sh** right into it."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4f9187d
|
Only part you have to apologize for is getting me all horned up and then passing out, but I'll take a rain check
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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6aecbeb
|
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?"
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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0fd4a06
|
I knew all this, I understood the rules, but still, nothing broke my heart like the slow death of a shared joke that had once seemed genuinely funny.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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b922419
|
People are complicated," she continued, "and the ones who aren't are boring." "Then maybe I'm boring." We looked at each other, and in a genuinely sad voice, she said, "Maybe you are."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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523034b
|
I've always found the thousand dollar dinners more unsettling than the twenty-five-thousand dollar ones --- if someone pays the Republican National Committee twenty-five thousand dollars (or, more likely, fifty per couple) to breathe the same air as Charlie for an hour or two, then it's clear the person has money to spare. What breaks my heart is when it's apparent through their accent or attire that a person isn't well off but has scrimped..
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politics
politician-s-wife
elections
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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cd5f28e
|
For months I heard whispers and though it had seemed that they were carried to me on the wind, they were really coming from inside my own head.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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e3aad99
|
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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34e209b
|
But the truth was that I didn't want to stay in Riley. The pulls of familial love and obligation could not, for the moment, compete with the promise of early-relationship sex. Starlight and beer and our twisting, naked bodies--that was what I wanted, not a seat at a dining room table with two old women eating breaded veal cutlets and Vienna torte.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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bac0a3d
|
She would say that we create our own reality-that the truth, ultimately, is what we choose to believe.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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ac5f3b4
|
In my expectation that good fortune will lead inextricably to its reversal, I should note that I don't think I'm less deserving of happiness than anyone else; it is that in an unequal world, nobody deserves the privileges I enjoy.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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37defb4
|
It's hard to imagine him angry without them. It must be like watching a game show by yourself, how calling out the answers feels silly and pointless. What is fury without witnesses? Where's the tension minus an audience to wonder what you'll do next?
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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c6839ff
|
In the end, there was always your regular life, and no one could deal with it but you.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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76cbc34
|
Dintre toate locurile prin care am fost in toata viata mea, Ault a fost spatial cu cea mai mare densitate de oameni de care ma puteam indragosti.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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6c75ec7
|
Cu ani mai tarziu, la o nunta, l-am auzit pe preot descriind casnicia ca pe o frangere in doua a tristetii si o dublare a bucuriei, si nu mi-a trecut prin minte nici tipul cu care eram atunci si nici vreun sot perfect, imaginar, din viitorul meu; in schimb, m-am gandit imediat la Matha.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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b00ad2a
|
In camine, unii dintre elevi se apucasera deja sa impacheteze, lucru pe care eu il uram - vedeam peretii goi si suprafetele lipsite de obiecte ca pe niste aluzii rauvoitoare la cat de efemer era totul in jur, cat de iluzorie era senzatia pe care o avem ca ne apartine vreodata ceva.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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2a612be
|
If I moved back, I'm sure I'd find some great place to live. I wouldn't have to make a reservation to take a spin class or wait in line just to get into the grocery store. But then I'd look up one day and be like, 'What the fuck have I done?'
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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acd1b80
|
Plus, it made me nervous, because was this the time in my own life before I found someone to love and had a family and looked back longingly on my youthful freedom? Or was it the beginning of what my life would be like forever?
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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06c97e6
|
There's no better investment than your cleavage." Charlotte smirked. "I believe they teach that in business school."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4d4e461
|
Here's what I've learned about the people in this city," Darcy was saying. "They grade their women on a curve. If someone is described as sophisticated, it means once during college she visited Paris, and if someone is described as beautiful, it means she's fifteen pounds overweight instead of forty. And"
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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d67ced6
|
Just as some people enjoy knitting in front of the television, Mrs. Bennet was fond of perusing housewares catalogs; indeed, the sound of pages turning, that quick flap when no item caught her eye and the pauses when something did, the occasional businesslike lick of the index finger, was one of the essential sounds of Liz's childhood. This habit was also, apparently, what allowed Mrs. Bennet to maintain a belief that she had not actually "..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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fd9fce2
|
He's a lawyer in Atlanta, and he's very active in his church," Mrs. Bennet said. "If that's not the description of a man looking for a wife, I don't know what is."
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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7c15ca9
|
It was generally less shocking to Liz that twenty years after high school she was still her essential self, the self she'd grown up as, unencumbered by spouse or child, than that nearly everyone else had changed, moved on, and multiplied. After
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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5b007cc
|
Oh, how different my life would have been had I not grown up in the same house with my grandmother, how much narrower and blander! She was the reason I was a reader, and being a reader was what had made me most myself; it had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant and contradictory place, and it had made me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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4d55232
|
Because honestly, to this day, I don't really know what made him interested in me. It's not that I hate myself, at least not most of the time - it's just that it wouldn't have been difficult for Jason to find a woman who was prettier, or more of a fighter for the underdog, or both. The one time I asked him about it, and I tried to ask as casually, as unpathetically, as possible, given that it's an inherently pathetic question, he said, "Bec..
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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dcaba27
|
I want to open myself up, I want to experience other dimensions, I don't want to be bound by the rules of this world. Does that make me a freak?
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Curtis Sittenfeld |
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f8a9457
|
Liz had tried not to experience the doubly insulting sting of being excluded by a person she didn't care for.
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Curtis Sittenfeld |