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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
Draft
Rough
Complete
Novel
Goal
Perfect
Every
More quotes by Jane Smiley
The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.
Jane Smiley
But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses
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I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
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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.
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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 an only child. I've known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents.
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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
Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.
Jane Smiley
People are quite frequently eccentric.
Jane Smiley
Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.
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
A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.
Jane Smiley
A novelist is on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing.
Jane Smiley
Hungry ears are sharp ones.
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.
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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
Novelists never have to footnote.
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.
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There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings - that is their paradox.
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you know that the urge for revenge is a fact of marital life.
Jane Smiley