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).
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.
Even if my marriage is falling apart and my children are unhappy, there is still a part of me that says, 'God, this is fascinating!'
How will you know a good farmer when you meet him? He will not ask you for any favors.
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.
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 are other sorts of trains, and other sorts of novels. They rush by in the dark; passengers framed in the lighted windows are smiling and enjoying themselves.
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.
People are quite frequently eccentric.
I say, when your hair turns gray and your children think they know who you are, do the thing that shakes up who you think you are, even who you had prided yourself on being. When all those around you say they simply don't recognize you any longer, that's the real compliment.
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.
Novelists never have to footnote.
A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.
An urban novelist never minds a little decay.
a bookstore is one of the few places where all the cantankerous, conflicting, alluring voices of the world co-exist in peace and order and the avid reader is as free as a person can possibly be, because she is free to choose among them.
My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And that's basically a conservative view of life.
The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.
'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 Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be.
Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn't stand the news, I knew that if the missile were launched, mortality would arrive in half an hour, so I spent a lot of my childhood feeling that I was 30 minutes from being dead.
Oh, that sound? I'm in the hot tub, reading a novel.
We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don't get the flavor of the local events, the local news as much.
I have reared, or helped to rear, five children and the scariest bit, bar none, is the learning to drive part. It has filled me with anxiety not only about the children, but also about my former self and my friends.