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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.

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
Book
Computer
Vincent
Writing
Asked
Inventor
Something
Cases
Editor
Told
Editors
Knew
Invented
American
John
Write
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More quotes by Jane Smiley

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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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Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.
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Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.
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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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In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.
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There are several methods for introducing your children to driving, and all of them are bad. Probably the worst is to put it off.
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Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.
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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.
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Hungry ears are sharp ones.
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Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
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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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I don't know - is everything the U.S. does a shocking embarrassment?
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Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
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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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Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.
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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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Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...
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There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.
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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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Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
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