Quote

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

Jane Smiley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jane Smiley
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Jane Graves Smiley
Contrary
Artists
Ones
Whatever
Society
Artist
Every
Expects

More quotes by Jane Smiley

Image
There are several methods for introducing your children to driving, and all of them are bad. Probably the worst is to put it off.
Jane Smiley
Image
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.
Jane Smiley
Image
The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer it's possessed by the reader.
Jane Smiley
Image
Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I would wake up in terror in a way that I would never wake up while working on a novel.
Jane Smiley
Image
Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family
Jane Smiley
Image
Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.
Jane Smiley
Image
everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage.
Jane Smiley
Image
Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.
Jane Smiley
Image
it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco.
Jane Smiley
Image
I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.
Jane Smiley
Image
Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value knowledge. It was an exciting field.
Jane Smiley
Image
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.
Jane Smiley
Image
People are quite frequently eccentric.
Jane Smiley
Image
Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.
Jane Smiley
Image
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.
Jane Smiley
Image
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.
Jane Smiley
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.
Jane Smiley
Image
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.
Jane Smiley