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a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.
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
World
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Avid
Free
Bookstores
Peace
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Voice
Possibly
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Reader
Bookstore
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Among
Conflicting
More quotes by Jane Smiley
I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.
Jane Smiley
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
Jane Smiley
I learned why 'out riding alone' is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.
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
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
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
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
English majors understand human nature better than economists do.
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
Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
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
But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses
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
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
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.
Jane Smiley
A novelist is on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing.
Jane Smiley
I spent part of my college years in a Marxist commune. I was not a Marxist. I wasn't even pretending to be one. I was a Marxist-in-law.
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
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
Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'
Jane Smiley