Quote

I don't know - is everything the U.S. does a shocking embarrassment?

Jane Smiley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jane Smiley
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Jane Graves Smiley
Embarrassment
Shocking
Doe
Everything

More quotes by Jane Smiley

Image
Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.
Jane Smiley
Image
Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
Jane Smiley
Image
I have reared, or helped to rear, five children and the scariest bit, bar none, is the learning to drive part. It has filled me with anxiety not only about the children, but also about my former self and my friends.
Jane Smiley
Image
The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
Jane Smiley
Image
My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that's basically a conservative view of life.
Jane Smiley
Image
A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.
Jane Smiley
Image
A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.
Jane Smiley
Image
I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn't. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff.
Jane Smiley
Image
I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
Jane Smiley
Image
The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.
Jane Smiley
Image
Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family
Jane Smiley
Image
If novels and stories are bulletins from the progressive states of ignorance a writer passes through over the years, observations and opinions about horses are all the more so, since horses are more mysterious than life and harder to understand.
Jane Smiley
Image
People are quite frequently eccentric.
Jane Smiley
Image
Is human nature basically good or evil? No economist can embark upon his profession without considering this question, and yet they all seem to. And they all seem to think human nature is basically good, or they wouldn't be surprised by the effects of deregulation.
Jane Smiley
Image
I learned why 'out riding alone' is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.
Jane Smiley
Image
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
Jane Smiley
Image
If there's anything Trollope novels always take seriously, it is money - how it flows from one character to another, how it is managed, who has it, who deserves it, and what it means to a character, male or female.
Jane Smiley
Image
Novelists never have to footnote.
Jane Smiley
Image
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.
Jane Smiley
Image
Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
Jane Smiley