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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

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Jane Smiley
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Jane Graves Smiley
Thinking
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Surprised
Nature
Basically
Seems
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Effects
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More quotes by Jane Smiley

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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
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There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where many horses are gathered together, where year after year, decade after decade, they do the same, rather simple thing - run in races and try to win.
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Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.
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Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.
Jane Smiley
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In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.
Jane Smiley
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I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.
Jane Smiley
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Sinclair Lewis may be ripe for a revival his books raise several interesting issues of art and fashion.
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The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.
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The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.
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Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.
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People are quite frequently eccentric.
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I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your characters, and write it from their point of view. It's really fun. It's not erotic.
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Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.
Jane Smiley
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I was an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents.
Jane Smiley
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you know that the urge for revenge is a fact of marital life.
Jane Smiley
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Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
Jane Smiley
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Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance.
Jane Smiley
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In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.
Jane Smiley
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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
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If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.
Jane Smiley