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Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

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
Good
Delusions
Intentions
Delusion
Wicked
Intention
Lead
Lies
Lying

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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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Combined families often get bad reviews, but the family my children got when they traded away 'the suffocating four-person' nuclear one is one that has benefited all of them.
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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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People are quite frequently eccentric.
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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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I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your characters, and write it from their point of view. It's really fun. It's not erotic.
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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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Candy is my fuel. Ice cream, too.
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I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.
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Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.
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Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.
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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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I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.
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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.
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Sinclair Lewis may be ripe for a revival his books raise several interesting issues of art and fashion.
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In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.
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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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The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
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The thing about Republicans is that they don't care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.
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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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