Latest Jane Smiley Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I would wake up in terror in a way that I would never wake up while working on a novel.

  Jane Smiley

  Horse, Racing, Wake Up

• You cannot be an egomaniac on the horse. If you lose your temper and start beating him, either you will destroy him, or he will destroy you. As soon as you start riding horses seriously, you're being disciplined on a daily basis about how ignorant you are and what there is left for you to learn.

  Jane Smiley

  Horse, Ignorant, Riding

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• 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.

  Jane Smiley

  Strong, Sex, Fun

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

  Jane Smiley

  Novel, Reader, Fascinating

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• 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.

  Jane Smiley

  Groups, Analysis, Helping

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

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

  Jane Smiley

  Artist, Contrary

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

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

  Jane Smiley

  Art, Exercise, Taste

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• There are five things that societies do: They reproduce; they produce food; they organize themselves in terms of law; they organize themselves in terms of belief; and they make art. Four of them are about conformity, and in these, everything would go more smoothly if people just would shut up and do what they're told. But in art it doesn't work that way.

  Jane Smiley

  Art, Law, People

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• 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.

  Jane Smiley

  Novelists, Groups, Want

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

• 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.

  Jane Smiley

  College, Years, Law

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.

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

  Jane Smiley

  Community, Individualism, Progressive

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. December 4, 2007.