“You know when we came out of the clinic, and we saw those flower beds that we hadn’t seen when we were… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something… — Jane Smiley Accepted Copy Share Image
“At sixty miles per hour, you could pass our farm in a minute, on County Road 686, which ran due north into… — Jane Smiley First-sentence Copy Share Image
I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage… — Jane Smiley Bigs Copy Share Image
“The real mystery was how your farm bound you to it, so tightly that you would pay any price (literally, in interest)… — Jane Smiley Farm Copy Share Image
“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 Age Copy Share Image
The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted. — Jane Smiley Charity Copy Share Image
“If living is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various… — Jane Smiley Books Copy Share Image
“And of course there was no help for it, except recalling bits of conversations she had overheard from time to time about… — Jane Smiley Communication Copy Share Image
We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don't get the flavor of the local events, the local news… — Jane Smiley Big Copy Share Image
I readily admit it is easy to make of horses what we will. Silent, in some ways reserved, they allow us to… — Jane Smiley Degrees Copy Share Image
Vets do what doctors used to - diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind… — Jane Smiley Best Copy Share Image
The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel. — Jane Smiley Books 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
“I dream about standing in the lunch line naked. It's always the lunch line in ninth grade. Nakedness dreams are very common.… — Jane Smiley Dreams 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 Alluring Copy Share Image
In his 30 years of broadcasting and publishing fiction, Garrison Keillor has set the laugh bar pretty high. — Jane Smiley Bar Copy Share Image
As Fallingwater demonstrates, Wright's genius was always specific, but also always lively, always daring. — Jane Smiley Always 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
“She did not think it any coincidence that ideas denigrating literary authorship had taken center stage simultaneously with the emergence of formerly… — Jane Smiley Center stage Copy Share Image
“I had a burden lift off me that I hadn't even felt the heaviness of until then, and it was the burden… — Jane Smiley Burdens Copy Share Image
One of the profound effects of economics in our day is that the people with the money and the power have embraced… — Jane Smiley Day Copy Share Image
