List of Jane Smiley Quotes

I Spent Part Of My College Years In A Marxist Commune. I Was Not A Marxist. I Wasn't Even Pretending To Be One. I Was A Marxist-in-law.

I Love To Write About Sex. You Just Have To Make It Idiosyncratic. You Have To Have A Strong Comprehension Of Your Characters, And Write It From Their Point Of View. It's Really Fun. It's Not Erotic.

Progressivism Is Usually Seen As A Stepping Back From Individualism Into A Progressive Community...

Every Novel Deals With Social Problems. It Can't Help It Because The Protagonist Must Come In Conflict With His Group. So The Author Has To Offer An Analysis Of How The Group And The Protagonist Fit. Otherwise, The Reader Will Just Say, "this Makes No Sense," And Will Put It Away.

I'm A Natural Novelist. I'm Interested In The Person And The Group, And How They Mesh. And One Of The Ways I Don't Want Them To Mesh Is For The Person To Be Subsumed Into The Group.

I Don't Know - Is Everything The U.s. Does A Shocking Embarrassment?

An Urban Novelist Never Minds A Little Decay.

Gossip. The More You Talk About Why People Do Things, The More Ideas You Have About How The World Works.

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 All The More So, Since Horses Are More Mysterious Than Life And Harder To Understand.

The Fundamental Condition Of Childhood Is Powerlessness.

Why Are We Reading A Shakespeare Play Or 'huckleberry Finn?' Well, Because These Works Are Great, But They Also Tell Us Something About The Times In Which They Were Created. Unfortunately, Previous Eras And Dead Authors Often Used Language Or Accepted As Normal Sentiments That We Now Find Unacceptable.

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 Fine Arts Club In The Same City. What The Novel Has To Offer, Among Other Things, Is Honesty.