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Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind one of its characteristics is that it doesn't recognize itself as ignorance.

Jane Smiley

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Jane Smiley
Age: 76
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Jane Graves Smiley
States
Self
Mind
Generating
Characteristics
Recognize
Ignorance
State
Doesn

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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.
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Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance.
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Novelists never have to footnote.
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Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
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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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everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage.
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People with good intentions never give up!
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you know that the urge for revenge is a fact of marital life.
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My mom was paranoid about my safety.
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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.
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Hungry ears are sharp ones.
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Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family
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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.
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The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer it's possessed by the reader.
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Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...
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I don't know - is everything the U.S. does a shocking embarrassment?
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Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.
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Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
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