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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
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Jane Smiley
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Jane Graves Smiley
Cannot
Novelist
Writing
Novelists
Life
Apart
Lived
Understood
Reading
Lives
Two
More quotes by Jane Smiley
Hungry ears are sharp ones.
Jane Smiley
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
I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
Jane Smiley
In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.
Jane Smiley
Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.
Jane Smiley
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
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.
Jane Smiley
Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...
Jane Smiley
The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
Jane Smiley
Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.
Jane Smiley
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.
Jane Smiley
Novelists never have to footnote.
Jane Smiley
Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.
Jane Smiley
Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family
Jane Smiley
Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
Jane Smiley
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
Jane Smiley
I say, when your hair turns gray and your children think they know who you are, do the thing that shakes up who you think you are, even who you had prided yourself on being. When all those around you say they simply don't recognize you any longer, that's the real compliment.
Jane Smiley
I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.
Jane Smiley
Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don't know any smokers now, not even my mom.
Jane Smiley
Vets do what doctors used to - diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind you that these things happen and that in life we are also in the midst of death.
Jane Smiley
