Jane Smiley

Hungry ears are sharp ones.

— Jane Smiley

Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.

— Jane Smiley

Novelists never have to footnote.

— Jane Smiley

“Evil people must spread their evil everywhere.”

— Jane Smiley

An urban novelist never minds a little decay.

— Jane Smiley

“He laughed with a kind of mirthless bark.”

— Jane Smiley

People with good intentions never give up!

— Jane Smiley

Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.

— Jane Smiley

Your sons weren't made to like you. That's what grandchildren are for.

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors.

— Jane Smiley

Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community...

— Jane Smiley

The one thing ... maybe no family could tolerate was things coming out into the open.

— Jane Smiley

“The novel is, above all, an intense experience of prolonged intimacy with another consciousness.”

— Jane Smiley

I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.

— Jane Smiley

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

— Jane Smiley

“At sixty miles per hour, you could pass our farm in a minute, on County Road 686, which ran due north into…

— Jane Smiley

Combined families often get bad reviews, but the family my children got when they traded away 'the suffocating four-person' nuclear one is…

— Jane Smiley

But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses

— Jane Smiley

There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off…

— Jane Smiley

The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames…

— Jane Smiley

Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.

— Jane Smiley

Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don't know any smokers…

— Jane Smiley

I have reared, or helped to rear, five children and the scariest bit, bar none, is the learning-to-drive part. It has filled…

— Jane Smiley

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

“...I had been with my father so constantly for so long that I knew less and less about him with every passing…

— Jane Smiley

Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds…

— Jane Smiley

“We watched the swimmers and sunbathers and I thought about this. Had I faced all the facts? It seemed like I had,…

— Jane Smiley

You cannot be an egomaniac on the horse. If you lose your temper and start beating him, either you will destroy him,…

— Jane Smiley

“She knew she had become the strange sort of lady that she remembered noticing as a child, the sort of lady who…

— Jane Smiley

I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage…

— Jane Smiley

Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting…

— Jane Smiley

“Rosie and Mary had taken only a 10 percentage of this privilege - they were three minutes late leaving their room and…

— Jane Smiley

“She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the…

— Jane Smiley

“A moment later, Jackie lifts himself into a canter. It is analyzable - I have seen the picture of how he steps…

— Jane Smiley

The body, the mind, and the spirit don't form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other…

— Jane Smiley

“Shame is a distinct feeling. I couldn’t look at my hands around the coffee cup or hear my own laments without feeling…

— Jane Smiley

“Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how…

— Jane Smiley

“I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there…

— Jane Smiley

Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive…

— Jane Smiley