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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
Mind
Generating
Characteristics
Recognize
Ignorance
State
Doesn
States
Self

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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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Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way to tell. It was better to stay on the steading and mind the cows and be content with such days as are left to one and cease to wonder about life everlasting.
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Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.
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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.
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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.
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A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.
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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!'
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A novelist is on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing.
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People with good intentions never give up!
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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.
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Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.
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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 thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.
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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.
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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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There are several methods for introducing your children to driving, and all of them are bad. Probably the worst is to put it off.
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The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.
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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.
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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.
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I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
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