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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.
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
Wells
Nations
Well
Interesting
Enough
Fact
Writing
Write
Life
Stuff
Autobiography
People
Facts
Entire
Ends
Nation
Find
Everybody
More quotes by Jane Smiley
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.
Jane Smiley
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
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.
Jane Smiley
I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.
Jane Smiley
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.
Jane Smiley
If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.
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
Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value knowledge. It was an exciting field.
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
Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.
Jane Smiley
it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.
Jane Smiley
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.
Jane Smiley
Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.
Jane Smiley
everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage.
Jane Smiley
Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop!
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
There are several methods for introducing your children to driving, and all of them are bad. Probably the worst is to put it off.
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
There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where many horses are gathered together, where year after year, decade after decade, they do the same, rather simple thing - run in races and try to win.
Jane Smiley
The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer it's possessed by the reader.
Jane Smiley
