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Combined families often get bad reviews, but the family my children got when they traded away 'the suffocating four-person' nuclear one is one that has benefited all of them.

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
Away
Benefited
Persons
Combined
Person
Reviews
Children
Families
Nuclear
Four
Family
Traded
Often
Suffocating

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Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.
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A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.
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Hungry ears are sharp ones.
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Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. Unfortunately, previous eras and dead authors often used language or accepted as normal sentiments that we now find unacceptable.
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In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion.
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Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I would wake up in terror in a way that I would never wake up while working on a novel.
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Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
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Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later.
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The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames the issues further. But that is America, especially these days.
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All equestrians, if they last long enough, learn that riding in whatever form is a lifelong sport and art, an endeavor that is both familiar and new every time you take the horse out of his stall or pasture.
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Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'
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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 main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer it's possessed by the reader.
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English majors understand human nature better than economists do.
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In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.
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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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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.
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it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.
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The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
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Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.
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