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Jane Smiley Biography

Jane Smiley (born September 26, 1949) is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).

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Jane Smiley Quotes

In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.

Finn, Heart, Heritage, Identity

Progressivism is usually seen as a stepping back from individualism into a progressive community. . .

Community, Individualism, Progressive, Stepping

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 be morally good, but it is not considered moral if the highest values of a society are adherence to rules and traditional mores, the maintenance of hierarchical relationships, and absolute ideas of right and wrong. Any society based on the latter will find novels inherently immoral and subversive.

Ideas, Tolerance, Individuality, Latter, Freedom, Values

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.

Country, Famous, Lloyd, Museums, New York, Wright

All equestrians, if they last long enough, learn that riding in whatever form is a lifelong sport and art, an endeavor that is both familiar and new every time you take the horse out of his stall or pasture.

Art, Horse, Sports, Stall, Time

I thought I might write mysteries for the rest of my life.

Life, Might, Mystery, Rest, Write, Writing

I wrote the Dickens book because I loved Dickens, not because I felt a kinship with him, but after writing the book it seemed to me that there was at least one similarity between us and that was that Dickens loved to write and wrote with the ease and conviction of breathing. Me, too.

Book, Writing, Breathing, Seemed, Felt

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.

Lucky, Novels, Progress, Write, Writing

Love is a general emotion. Marriage is exactingly specific.

Emotion, Exactingly, General, Love, Love Is

How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors.

Farmer, Farmers, Farming, Favors, Meet

Whatever you love is beautiful; love comes first, beauty follows. The greater your capacity for love, the more beauty you find in the world.

Beautiful, Capacity, Follows, Greater, Love Is, World

Respect and fear are two different things.

Different, Fear, Respect, Things, Two, Two Different Things

In every society, the artists will be the ones who set themselves up as contrary to whatever the society expects.

Artist, Contrary, Ones, Set, Society

There is something I have noticed about desire, that it opens the eyes and strikes them blind at the same time.

Blind, Desire, Eye, Strikes

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.

College, Law, Marxist, Spent, Years

The only siblings I have are half-siblings. My nuclear family would have been an extra-suffocating threesome. Instead, I have an interesting brother and sister, in-laws, and darling nephews.

Brother, Interesting, Nephews, Sibling, Sister, Sister In Law

Novelists never have to footnote.

Footnote, Footnotes, Novelists

Giving his lecture for the third time freed Dr. Lionel Gift from paying much attention to it. He had a naturally expressive style of delivery, hones over the years in elementary-econ lecture halls. He knew, without even thinking, to address the middle rows of the hall, but to occasionally "shoot" the listeners in the back corners. He knew how to make eye contact and solicit the attention of those who were thinking of other things.

Contact, Eye, Teaching, Thinking, Time

When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.

Believe, Break, Children, Commandment, Father

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

Good, Good Intentions, Intentions, Lying, Wicked

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Jane Smiley Biography

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