Eligible Quotes

“There’s a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you—that both are inherently unfeminist. I don’t agree. There’s no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Time seemed, as it always does in adulthood after a particular stretch has concluded, no matter how ponderous or unpleasant the stretch was to endure, to have passed quickly indeed.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Fred!" the nurse said, though they had never met. "How are we today?" Reading the nurse's name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, "Bernard! We're mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“I'm old enough to know that sometimes you don't get a second chance.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Such compliments--they were thrilling but almost impossible to absorb in this quantity, at this pace. It was like she was being pelted with magnificent hail, and she wished she could save the individual stones to examine later, but they'd exist with such potency only now, in this moment.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Liz felt the loneliness of confiding something true in a person who didn't care.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Sometimes it amazes me how much these defining parts of our lives hinge on chance.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“I'd think, One of the times she leaves will be the last time I see her. It destroyed me. I didn't want us to have a last time, and that was how I realized I'd fallen in love with you.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always twenty years behind the times. —Mark Twain”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“As they sat, Kathy de Bourgh smiled and said, “Now that we’ve both apologized within the first thirty seconds of our conversation about women and power, shall we begin?”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“I take it you don’t believe in love at first sight.” “Does anyone over the age of thirteen? Do you?” “I don’t, no,” Darcy said. “But I don’t rule out for others what I haven’t experienced firsthand.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“He seemed simultaneously like a stranger and someone she knew extremely well; there was either an enormous amount to say or nothing at all.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“There's a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you-that both are inherently unfeminist. I don't agree. There's no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“A reality show isn’t unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, then,” Mr. Bennet said. “In that they both require nominations.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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?”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Liz and Willie were passing a miniature chateau--even in its modified version, it was seven or eight thousand square feet--and Liz said, "I guess I'm a Cincinnati opportunist. In New York, I play the wholesome-midwesterner card, but when I'm back here, I consider myself to be a chic outsider." Even before Willie replied, Liz felt the loneliness of having confided something true in a person who didn't care.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“she might even have felt that self-congratulatory pride that heterosexual white people are known to experience due to proximate diversity.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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?’ ”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Then she was in a different part of the club, and she and Kitty were dancing to a rap song they both knew all the words to, and Kitty was wearing a thin plastic headband with antennae off of which wobbled life-sized sparkly pink penises. How marvelous this headband was! Even more marvelously, Kitty pointed out that Liz was wearing an identical one. Truly, it was a magical night.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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 “watched” a wide variety of shows even though she had been in the room for the duration of entire episodes and, in some cases, entire seasons. They”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“There's no better investment than your cleavage." Charlotte smirked. "I believe they teach that in business school.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“I contain multitudes”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Does being forty feel fabulous and foxy?” Liz asked.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“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”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Liz thought that these compromising circumstances gave the situation a certain credibility: it wasn't too good to be true.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Not only will I be there,” Liz said, “but I’ll be impersonating a pleasant woman with great manners.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

“she was at times most able to enjoy her family members when she could sense their presence nearby without actually interacting with them.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible