“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
Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as… — Jane Smiley Day Copy Share Image
“War is inevitable when the world is fallen. If you stop one, another will start. Redemption is the only path away from… — Jane Smiley Inevitable Copy Share Image
If there's anything Trollope novels always take seriously, it is money - how it flows from one character to another, how it… — Jane Smiley Always Copy Share Image
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. — Jane Smiley Desire 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 Dream Copy Share Image
A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together. — Jane Smiley Adventure 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… — Jane Smiley Chance Copy Share Image
I say, when your hair turns gray and your children think they know who you are, do the thing that shakes up… — Jane Smiley Children Copy Share Image
Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn't stand the news, I… — Jane Smiley Being 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
After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After… — Jane Smiley Chill Copy Share Image
“Laura's gossip was redeemed by its lack of spite. She was warmly objective about every event, taking endless delight in action and… — Jane Smiley Daily life 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
“So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that… — Jane Smiley Forgive Copy Share Image
'Lean on Pete' is the story of a boy and his horse, but it is never heart-warming - it ranges in tone… — Jane Smiley 21st century 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
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
“She was almost sixty and she had not been to London, or Paris, or Rome, and there was no going there now.… — Jane Smiley Balanced 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
When 'The Awakening' was published it was considered so scandalous it was banned in the author's home-town library, and she herself was… — Jane Smiley Art Copy Share Image
“But even though I felt her presence, I also felt the habitual fruitlessness of thinking about her. Her images, partly memories of… — Jane Smiley Memory 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
“...but from this distance, the velvety reds, flashing yellows and glassy whites [of the roses] seemed to break up the light of… — Jane Smiley Flowers Copy Share Image
“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 Delirious Copy Share Image
![“...but from this distance, the velvety reds, flashing yellows and glassy whites [of the roses] seemed to break up the light of the summer sun into its various elements and cast it back far more brilliantly than any other flower ever could, seemed not exactly of the earth, but of space and air…” quote by Jane Smiley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c4c/jane-smiley-2120_flowers_but-from-this-distance-the-velvety-reds_3026402.jpg)
