I spent part of my college years in a Marxist commune. I was not a Marxist. I wasn't even pretending to be… — Jane Smiley College Copy Share Image
“In this flirtation he was conducting, he had had to rely entirely on his personality, never a good idea.” — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
“It is hard to know whether an air of self-confidence precedes or follows success.” — Jane Smiley Confidence Copy Share Image
I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn. — Jane Smiley Life Copy Share Image
Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works. — Jane Smiley Gossip 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 Goal Copy Share Image
“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 Anger Copy Share Image
Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had… — Jane Smiley Birthday Copy Share Image
The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames… — Jane Smiley America Copy Share Image
Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book. — Jane Smiley Book Copy Share Image
I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children… — Jane Smiley Busy Copy Share Image
In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen… — Jane Smiley Agony Copy Share Image
The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance… — Jane Smiley Adherence 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 Books Copy Share Image
'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy… — Jane Smiley Ambitious Copy Share Image
The one thing ... maybe no family could tolerate was things coming out into the open. — Jane Smiley Coming out 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 Attractive Copy Share Image
“In her minds eye she sat there, in the domesticated golden sunlight on the velvet sofa, lapped around by carpets and books… — Jane Smiley Books Copy Share Image
There is a sociology of horses, as well as a psychology. It is most evident in the world of horse racing, where… — Jane Smiley Evident Copy Share Image
It once amused me that it took me three tries to pass my driver's test and that my driving instructor told my… — Jane Smiley Amused Copy Share Image
If American literature has a few heroes, Miller is one of them. He refused to name names at the McCarthy hearings, and… — Jane Smiley American Copy Share Image
