Jane Smiley – 21 Quotes

21 Quotes by Jane Smiley

I learned why ‘out riding alone’ is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.

– Jane Smiley

I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life’s mystery and unpredictability, of life’s generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation.

– Jane Smiley

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, to be recognised for one’s accomplishments and hard work – in a way that old familiar death does not.

– Jane Smiley

There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings – that is their paradox.

– Jane Smiley

Vets do what doctors used to – diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind you that these things happen and that in life we are also in the midst of death.

– Jane Smiley

I was an only child. I’ve known only children. From this experience, I do believe that the children should outnumber the parents.

– Jane Smiley

In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.

– Jane Smiley

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 of the book and experience them all over again, perhaps more intensely.

– Jane Smiley

Respect and fear are two different things.

– Jane Smiley

The thing about Republicans is that they don’t care so much about respect, but they love fear, at least in others.

– Jane Smiley

I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures.

– Jane Smiley

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 to California. She laughed out loud – 2,000 miles in a what? Well, my best friend had an old Chevy. What could go wrong?

– Jane Smiley

In December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known.

– Jane Smiley

Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don’t know any smokers now, not even my mom.

– Jane Smiley

My mom was paranoid about my safety.

– Jane Smiley

English majors understand human nature better than economists do.

– Jane Smiley

Is human nature basically good or evil? No economist can embark upon his profession without considering this question, and yet they all seem to. And they all seem to think human nature is basically good, or they wouldn’t be surprised by the effects of deregulation.

– Jane Smiley

There can never be such a thing as a free market, because it is human nature to cheat, monopolize, and buy off others so as to corner the market.

– Jane Smiley

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 by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion.

– Jane Smiley

I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.

– Jane Smiley

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 your foolishness.

– Jane Smiley