When people leave, they always seem to scoop themselves out of you. — Jane Smiley Leave Copy Share Image
English majors understand human nature better than economists do. — Jane Smiley Better Copy Share Image
Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out. — Jane Smiley Books Copy Share Image
Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. — Jane Smiley America Copy Share Image
I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty. — Jane Smiley Cold Copy Share Image
Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones. — Jane Smiley Avid Copy Share Image
“Failure was startling, really. So startling that I hardly noticed it at all.” — Jane Smiley Failure Copy Share Image
Some people do wait their whole lives for something, and it's only when that thing arrives that they find out that they've… — Jane Smiley Aging Copy Share Image
I learned why 'out riding alone' is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious… — Jane Smiley Alone Copy Share Image
I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your… — Jane Smiley Character 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
Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out… — Jane Smiley Aesthetic Copy Share Image
I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able… — Jane Smiley Able 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 First-drafts Copy Share Image
There is something I have noticed about desire, that it opens the eyes and strikes them blind at the same time. — Jane Smiley Blind Copy Share Image
“But now I saw with fresh conviction that is was us, all of us, who were failing, and the hallmark of our… — Jane Smiley Failing Copy Share Image
When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I told my mother that my best friend and… — Jane Smiley Best Copy Share Image
With horses, familiarity breeds comfort. If you haven't been around horses for a while (or ever), the best thing to do is… — Jane Smiley Activity Copy Share Image
Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a… — Jane Smiley Accomplishment Copy Share Image
When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I… — Jane Smiley Believe Copy Share Image
Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There… — Jane Smiley Cease 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 Begin Copy Share Image
I wrote the Dickens book because I loved Dickens, not because I felt a kinship with him, but after writing the book… — Jane Smiley Book Copy Share Image
“It was the exact combination of the ephemeral and the eternal that a dying man needed to know about.” — Jane Smiley Death Copy Share Image
Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. — Jane Smiley Draft Copy Share Image
Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family — Jane Smiley Competent Copy Share Image
A theory of creativity is actually just a metaphor. A pool of ideas, a well of memories, a voice. — Jane Smiley Creativity Copy Share Image
it still astounds me, after forty years, that there is no good bread between Chicago and San Francisco. — Jane Smiley Bread Copy Share Image
“Seeing him somewhere was always a pleasure, like taking a drink of water.” — Jane Smiley Drink Copy Share Image
A horse herd was, in its very essence, the manifestation of the expression 'It's always something. — Jane Smiley Essence Copy Share Image
The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories. — Jane Smiley Days Copy Share Image
My great fear is not that I'll run out of ideas. It's that I'll run out of time. — Jane Smiley Fear Copy Share Image
“They throw themselves on the waters of the world, and they know they will be borne up.” — Jane Smiley Borne 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
“Two, she thought, was the most ephemeral age, the age of incipient consciousness, when personality was first chinking into place. Felicity was… — Jane Smiley Felicity 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 Groups 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
