The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It's perfect in its existence. The only… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Literature - novels, plays, and poems - can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical,… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
With any novel that you begin, you can't foresee how difficult or easy it's going to be, and you can't really prepare… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
A reader's tastes are peculiar. Choosing books to read is like making your way down a remote and winding path. Your stops… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“Leaving any bookstore is hard, especially on a day in August, when the street outside burns and glares, and the books inside… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Some novelists are luckier than others in the eras of their formative intellectual years, but all Weltanschauungs return, which means that most novelists have… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
The only siblings I have are half-siblings. My nuclear family would have been an extra-suffocating threesome. Instead, I have an interesting brother and sister,… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“We watched the swimmers and sunbathers and I thought about this. Had I faced all the facts? It seemed like I had, but actually,… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“They throw themselves on the waters of the world, and they know they will be borne up.” — Jane Smiley Copy Share 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 Copy Share Image
“Shame is a distinct feeling. I couldn’t look at my hands around the coffee cup or hear my own laments without feeling appalled, wanting… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the food hanging… — Jane Smiley Copy Share 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… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
