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Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.
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
Complete
Novel
Goal
Perfect
Every
Draft
Rough
More quotes by Jane Smiley
We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don't get the flavor of the local events, the local news as much.
Jane Smiley
I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you've bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch 'em carry it off, and you don't care. That's more like how it was.
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
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
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
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
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
Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.
Jane Smiley
Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom.
Jane Smiley
I don't know - is everything the U.S. does a shocking embarrassment?
Jane Smiley
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.
Jane Smiley
I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
Jane Smiley
I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.
Jane Smiley
Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.
Jane Smiley
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
I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.
Jane Smiley
People are quite frequently eccentric.
Jane Smiley
Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...
Jane Smiley
The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.
Jane Smiley
Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.
Jane Smiley
