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
Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God,… — Jane Smiley Children 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
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 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 Copy Share Image
Whatever you love is beautiful; love comes first, beauty follows. The greater your capacity for love, the more beauty you find in… — Jane Smiley Beautiful Copy Share Image
The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader. — Jane Smiley Books 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 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
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 Copy Share Image
There are five things that societies do: They reproduce; they produce food; they organize themselves in terms of law; they organize themselves… — Jane Smiley Art Copy Share Image
A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The… — Jane Smiley Belief Copy Share Image
“Everyone starved. Starvation is a potent weapon, and the Bolsheviks are happy to wield it. The cheapest way to get rid of… — Jane Smiley Dictatorship 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
Many said that now there was no hope of salvation, for a man might do anything and be in the wrong. There… — Jane Smiley 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 Copy Share Image
Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I… — Jane Smiley Books 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 loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
There weren't too many books by women that were taught in school, so I read those on my own, and the books… — Jane Smiley Book Copy Share Image
A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all… — Jane Smiley Life Copy Share Image
Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom. — Jane Smiley Art 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 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
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
The only siblings I have are half-siblings. My nuclear family would have been an extra-suffocating threesome. Instead, I have an interesting brother… — Jane Smiley Brother Copy Share Image
In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage… — Jane Smiley Being Copy Share Image
When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value… — Jane Smiley 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
“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 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 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
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 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 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
There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them. — Jane Smiley Asleep 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 Copy Share Image
