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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.

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
Together
Basically
Back
Survival
Never
Conservative
Conservatism
Life
Characters
Screaming
View
Scream
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Pull
Dies
Attempt
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Rage

More quotes by Jane Smiley

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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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Hungry ears are sharp ones.
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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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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.
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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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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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Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.
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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.
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English majors understand human nature better than economists do.
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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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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.
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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.
Jane Smiley
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Novelists never have to footnote.
Jane Smiley
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I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.
Jane Smiley
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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.
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Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family
Jane Smiley
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Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.
Jane Smiley
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My mom was paranoid about my safety.
Jane Smiley
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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