304 Quotes by Jane Smiley

  • Author Jane Smiley
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    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 have a take it one step at a time and know that it's all right to keep going - you can always fix it.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    It once amused me that it took me three tries to pass my driver's test and that my driving instructor told my mother that I was the least talented person behind the wheel that she had ever taught.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    Art doesn't exist if you just do what you're told. It only exists as an exercise of individual taste and freedom.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    If American literature has a few heroes, Miller is one of them. He refused to name names at the McCarthy hearings, and his play 'The Crucible' analysed the hearings in the context of a previous American mass psychosis, the Salem witch trials.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements - the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together.

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  • Author Jane Smiley
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    everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage.

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