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The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
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
Giving
Deciding
Charity
Essence
Needed
Others
Wanted
More quotes by Jane Smiley
Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.
Jane Smiley
it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.
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
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
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
Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds up. But there are other sorts of trains, and other sorts of novels. They rush by in the dark passengers framed in the lighted windows are smiling and enjoying themselves.
Jane Smiley
Sinclair Lewis may be ripe for a revival his books raise several interesting issues of art and fashion.
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
If novels and stories are bulletins from the progressive states of ignorance a writer passes through over the years, observations and opinions about horses are all the more so, since horses are more mysterious than life and harder to understand.
Jane Smiley
I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.
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
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
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
The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.
Jane Smiley
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
Jane Smiley
I don't know - is everything the U.S. does a shocking embarrassment?
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
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
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
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
