« All Novel Quotes · Jane Smiley's Page
Novel Quotes by Jane Smiley
- 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…
- Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.
- Not every novel that wants to be a tragedy gets to be one.
- When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to the first page…
- If there's anything Trollope novels always take seriously, it is money - how it flows from one character to another, how it is managed, who…
- Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out.
- 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 yourself. You just…
- If novels and stories are bulletins from the progressive states of ignorance a writer passes through over the years, observations and opinions about horses are…
- Sometimes, a novel is like a train: the first chapter is a comfortable seat in an attractive carriage, and the narrative speeds up. But there…
- 'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because…
- Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.
- Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.
- Somehow, knowing that Alzheimer's is coming mocks all one's aspirations - to tell stories, to think through certain issues as only a novel can do,…
- Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders.
- If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of…
- In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured…
- Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according…
- When 'The Awakening' was published it was considered so scandalous it was banned in the author's home-town library, and she herself was barred from the…
More Novel Quotes
- I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I was… — Paul Auster
- Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will… — Chinua Achebe
- I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just… — Margaret Atwood
- I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply… — Margaret Atwood
- The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing… — Margaret Atwood
- There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me… — Chinua Achebe
- The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends… — Wystan Hugh Auden
- Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at… — Wystan Hugh Auden
- The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. — Jane Austen
- For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its… — Paul Auster
- Movies are not novels, and that's why, when filmmakers try to adapt novels, particularly long or complex novels, the result is almost… — Paul Auster
- I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels. — Nicholson Baker