Jane Smiley Quotes

102 quotes in 1619 categories

• People with good intentions never give up!
• Some people do wait their whole lives for something, and it's only when that thing arrives that they find out that they've been waiting rather…
• With preference came point of view; with point of view, personality; with personality, uniqueness; with uniqueness, grief.
• As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral.
• Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'
• Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive style of delivery,…
• One of the things that Ivar knew about Mrs. Walker was that she would only tell him what she knew if he asked the right…
• Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There was no way…
• After a long day, folk rest at night. After a long summer, folk play games and sit about in the winter. After a long life…
• The body, the mind, and the spirit don't form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body…
• When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I told my mother that my best friend and I were driving…
• I say, when your hair turns gray and your children think they know who you are, do the thing that shakes up who you think…
• The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.
• When people leave, they always seem to scoop themselves out of you.
• The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to…
• When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order…
• Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.
• I have noticed before that there is a category of acquaintanceship that is not friendship or business or romance, but speculation, fascination.
• Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
• Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

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