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.)

— Curtis Sittenfeld

.and I thought how liking a boy was just the same as believing you wanted to know a secret - everything was better when you were denied and could feel tormented by curiosity or loneliness. But the moment of something happening was treacherous. It was just so tiring to have to worry about whether your face was peeling, or to have to laugh at stories that weren’t funny.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

And the reason I'm telling you all this is that I want you to know no one in my life has ever made me feel worse about myself than you.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

But I was living my life sideways. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

Children are nothing but a problem people create and then congratulate themselves on solving.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

Foolish names and foolish faces often appear in public places.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

How quickly we damn ourselves when we start to talk, how small and inglorious we always sound.

— Curtis Sittenfeld

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?

— Curtis Sittenfeld

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?

— Curtis Sittenfeld

I won’t claim I’ve never in my life done anything I’m ashamed of, but I haven’t done anything for a good while. If not everyone would agree with the decisions I’ve made, that’s fine. What other people think has never made a situation right or wrong.

— Curtis Sittenfeld