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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: 76
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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Dies
Attempt
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Rage

More quotes by Jane Smiley

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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.
Jane Smiley
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I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.
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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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.
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
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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.
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.
Jane Smiley
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Respect and fear are two different things.
Jane Smiley
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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.
Jane Smiley
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Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones.
Jane Smiley
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There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where many horses are gathered together, where year after year, decade after decade, they do the same, rather simple thing - run in races and try to win.
Jane Smiley
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I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.
Jane Smiley
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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.
Jane Smiley
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Hungry ears are sharp ones.
Jane Smiley
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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.
Jane Smiley
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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.
Jane Smiley
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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
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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.
Jane Smiley
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English majors understand human nature better than economists do.
Jane Smiley
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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.
Jane Smiley