J. Courtney Sullivan Quotes

• Women leave their marriages when they can't take any more. Men leave when they find someone new.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Inspirational, Marriage, Men

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.262, Vintage

  46 Copy quote

• Every woman needs secrets,' her mother said with a smile then, her eyes meeting Sally's in the rearview mirror. 'Remember that when you're old like me, pumpkin, because the world has a way of making a woman's life everyone else's business--you have to dig out a little place that's only yours.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Mother, Eye, Mirrors

  8 Copy quote

• Reading poetry gives me a sense of calm, well-being, and love for humanity - the same stuff more flexible women get from yoga.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Yoga, Reading, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• She had once said that she believed the women's liberation movement of the sixties and seventies was actually a ploy by men to get women to do more.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Men, Said, Liberation

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.240, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• When I was in fourth grade, a novelist came to talk to my English class. She told us that being an author meant sitting at the kitchen table in pajamas, drinking tea with the dogs at your feet.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Dog, Drinking, Feet

  7 Copy quote

• I read as much poetry as time allows and circumstance dictates: No heartache can pass without a little Dorothy Parker, no thunderstorm without W. H. Auden, no sleepless night without W. B. Yeats.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Night, Heartache, Littles

  60 Copy quote

• I admire the linear and decisive way a certain kind of man thinks, to my curlicue boundless overthinking.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Men, Thinking, Way

  7 Copy quote

• For whatever reason, various outlets and individuals are committed to making the world think that young girls don't talk or care about feminism anymore, that it's totally over. But it's not.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Girl, Thinking, Feminism

  5 Copy quote

• She thought about him all the time - not so much about Doug the individual, but rather about the nature of love, and the shock of learning how quickly it could disappear.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Individual, Disappear, Shock

  4 Copy quote

• Timing was everything when it came to being a woman—the moment you entered the world could seal your fate.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Fate, World, Timing

  FaceBook post by J. Courtney Sullivan from Mar 11, 2016

  4 Copy quote

• Fiction will always be my greatest love, with poetry close behind.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Greatest Love, Fiction, Behinds

  4 Copy quote

• In high school, during marathon phone conversations, cheap pizza dinners and long suburban car rides, I began to fall for boys because of who they actually were, or at least who I thought they might become.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Fall, School, Boys

  4 Copy quote

• This was how the modern working girl behaved. She didn’t hide her femininity or apologize for it, as they did in the old days. She flaunted it and, having been given more than any woman before her, demanded even more than that.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Girl, Apologizing, Modern

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2013). “The Engagements”, p.176, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• I love the smell of a mans skin.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Smell, Skins

  4 Copy quote

• I like dressing up for dates and dissecting a dinner conversation with a new guy to determine if he might be The One.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Dressing Up, Guy, Dinner

  5 Copy quote

• We don't always do the things our parents want us to do, but it is their mistake if they can't find a way to love us anyway.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Mistake, Parent, Want

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.76, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• A kid thinks her mother is just that -- hers. A mother is also a woman, an independent being, who doesn't want to be reminded by anyone, child or otherwise, of her tree-trunk thighs. The world made women's private lives a public affair to people who knew them and even people who didn't.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Mother, Children, Kids

  4 Copy quote

• You all seem to think that you should marry someone when you feel this intense emotion, which you call love. And then you expect that the love will fade over time, as life gets harder. When what you should do is find yourself a nice enough fellow and let real love develop over years and births and deaths and so on.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Real, Nice, Thinking

  FaceBook post by J. Courtney Sullivan from Nov 09, 2014

  4 Copy quote

• There were so many ways to be twenty-six years old.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Years, Twenties, Six Year Olds

  4 Copy quote

• She remembered how she had felt cleaning out her father's clothes, wanting at once to hold on to every dirty handkerchief and musty page of sheet much, and yet wishing she were anywhere else on earth, free of it all.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Father, Dirty, Clothes

  4 Copy quote

• When she was pregnant with Teddy, she feared that she’d give birth to a child who disliked reading. It would be like giving birth to a foreign species.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Children, Reading, Giving

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2013). “The Engagements”, p.32, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• If things had been different, she would be in Carolyn's place right now. She didn't want that sort of existence, but there was something so attractive about the security of feeling like you had stopped moving toward your life, and actually arrived.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Moving, Feelings, Different

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.201, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• The girls said she was too cynical about love, but how could you not be? On the surface, relations between men and women were all soft kisses and white gowns and hand-holding. But underneath they were a scary, complicated, ugly mess, just waiting to rise to the surface.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Girl, Kissing, Men

  J. Courtney Sullivan (2009). “Commencement”, p.96, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Character development is what I value most as a reader of fiction. If an author can manage to create the sort of characters who feel fully real, who I find myself worrying about while Im walking through the grocery store aisles a week later, that to me is as close to perfection as it gets.

  J. Courtney Sullivan

  Real, Character, Worry

  9 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Curtis Sittenfeld

Meg Wolitzer

Maggie Shipstead

Meg Waite Clayton

Elin Hilderbrand

Jenna Blum

Elizabeth Berg

Jonathan Dee