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J. Courtney Sullivan

J. Courtney Sullivan Books

Novelist

J. Courtney Sullivan is an American novelist recognized for her contemporary literary works that delve into the intricacies of family dynamics and individual identity. Born in 1982, she has gained recognition for her insightful storytelling and engaging characters.

Commencement

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Saints for All Occasions

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The Engagements

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Maine

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Related Quotes

“And anyway, once you allowed yourself to picture such a scenario, it couldn't happen. That was just the way life went.”

Life Imagination Dreams Acceptance Expectations Disappointment Let Down

Book:Maine

Source: Maine

“Each of Nora's children had arrived on this earth as him or herself, the more she knew them, the more she felt it to be true. They were so different from one another, and from her.”

Children Mother Growing Up Personality Parenting Individuality Motherhood Parents Parenthood

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“She had learned over time that to know anything was bearable. It was secrecy that could not be borne.”

Knowing Learning Secrets

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“It wasn't right that you could only understand your parents' pain once you'd experienced the things they had, and by then they were gone.”

Wisdom Pain Life Lessons Knowledge Growing Up Experience Parenting Old Age Maturity Parenthood

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“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 music, and yet wishing she were anywhere else on earth, free of it all.”

Loss Grief Death Of A Loved One Fathers And Daughters

Book:The Engagements

Source: The Engagements

“Nothing had just happened to her, she had made a choice, and then she had made another and another after that. Taken together, the small choices anyone made added up to a life.”

Life Wisdom Life Lessons Choices Attitude Decisions Choice Choices And Consequences Big Picture Maturation

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“One of life's contradictions: how human beings were at once entirely resilient and impossibly fragile. One decision could stay with you forever, and yet you could live through almost anything.”

Decisions Contradictions

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“How could a person have and do all these stupid things--clip coupons and double lock the front door--and then one day just cease to exist?”

Death Existence

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“The moment a woman was born determined so much of who she was allowed to become.”

Women Feminism Inequality

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“These fucking women really piss me off,' April said. 'Because instead of being elated by the thought of making their own happiness and chasing some crazy dream, all they want to do is narrow their options and do something safe.”

Happiness Dreams Play It Safe

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“Old age had distilled her down to her essence.”

Life Wisdom Life Lessons Humanity Essence Aging Old Age Womanhood Old People Elderly

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“I think we're just different sorts of people, me and you. You're a planner. Everything has to be perfectly aligned before you make a move, or you're afraid the whole damn world will come crashing down. For me, it's more like, "We're having a baby. Now what?”

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“Someone could save your life without you ever knowing it. It happened more than most people realized.”

Relationships Save Your Life

Book:Saints for All Occasions

Source: Saints for All Occasions

“With the Smithies, it was different. There was sometimes no telling where one of them began and the others left off.”

Friendship Sorority

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“I love the smell of a mans skin.”

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

Thinking Men Way Kind Certain Admire Boundless Linear Overthinking

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

Ifs Might Guy Conversation Determine Dinner Dressings Dressing Up Dissecting Dinner Conversation

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Ifs Feels Real Character Values Fiction Worry Week Development Reader Walking Perfection Stores Manage Groceries Character Development Aisle Grocery Stores

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Ifs Way Want Parent Mistake

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“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.”

Individual Disappear Shock

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Men Said Hands Girl Waiting White Kissing Men And Women Relation Scary Ugly Complicated Surface Mess Cynical Gowns Hand Holding White Gown

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“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.”

Ifs Want Different Feelings Would Be Moving Existence Security Like You Right Now Attractive

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“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.”

Men Said Movement Liberation Sixty Seventies Ploy

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

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

Men Inspirational Marriage Men And Women

Book:Commencement

Source: Commencement

“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.”

World Way Needs Littles Said Eye Remember Mother Secret Mirrors Meetings Like Me Her Eyes Pumpkin Rearview Mirror

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Giving Children Would Be Reading Birth Species Pregnant Giving Birth Teddy Were Pregnant

Book:The Engagements

Source: The Engagements

“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.”

Earth Father Wish Felt Clothes Pages Dirty Remembered Sheets Cleaning Handkerchiefs

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Class Feet Dog Sitting Tables Drinking Tea Novelists Kitchen Grades Fourth Pajamas Kitchen Table Fourth Grade Drinking Tea English Class

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

Way Years Six Twenties Six Year Olds

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Thinking Feels Should Years Real Enough Seems Emotion Nice Birth Harder Fellows Intense Finding Yourself Fades Real Love Birth And Death Intense Emotions

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

People Thinking World Want Children Made Kids Mother Tree Independent Affair Private Life Thighs Trunks Public Affairs Tree Trunks

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

World Moments Fate Timing Seals Being A Woman

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Thinking World Reason Care Young Girl Individual Feminism Committed Various Outlets

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

Giving Wells Humanity Reading Stuff Yoga And Love Give Me Calm Well Being Flexible Reading Poetry Love For Humanity

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

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

Behinds Fiction Greatest Love

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Long Might School Fall Boys Car Conversation High School Phones Dinner Marathon Pizza

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Littles Night Circumstances Heartache Thunderstorm Sleepless Nights Yeats Auden

Author:J. Courtney Sullivan

“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.”

Girl Given Modern Apologizing Femininity Old Days Working Girl

Book:The Engagements

Source: The Engagements

About the Author

Born: 1982
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 38

Related Topics

Ifs Men Thinking Way World Children Girl Life Life Lessons Mother

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

CommencementRelated source material

Saints for All OccasionsRelated source material

The EngagementsRelated source material

MaineRelated source material

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