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Quote by Jane Smiley

“Combined families often get bad reviews, but the family my children got when they traded away 'the suffocating four-person' nuclear one is one that has benefited all of them.”

Quote by Jane Smiley

Author

Jane Smiley is an accomplished American novelist known for her profound character development and rich imagination. Her works span a variety of literary genres, including historical fiction, contemporary life, and children's literature. Her novels, such as 'A Thousand Acres' and 'Bluebird', have received widespread acclaim. more

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“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.”

Children Self Bits Five Anxiety My Friends Filled Bars Former

Author:Jane Smiley

“I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn't. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff.”

Ifs Should Writing Said Book Cases Computer Editors Inventor

Author:Jane Smiley

“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.”

Writing Book Felt Conviction Breathing Ease Similarity Dickens Kinship

Book:Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

Source: Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

“In December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known.”

Years Known Experts December

Author:Jane Smiley

“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.”

Way Heart Honest Identity Being Honest Heritage Huckleberry

Author:Jane Smiley

“In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion.”

Way Ideas Self Found Cities Talking Novel Survival Doctors Traditional Cures Agony Self Knowledge Urban Psychoanalysis Conformist

Author:Jane Smiley

“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.”

Ifs Feelings Would Be Hours Half Wonder Childhood Minutes News Mortality Missiles

Author:Jane Smiley

“Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance.”

Novel Fashion Conservative Surface Novelists Aesthetic Bent Relevance Irrelevance

Book:13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Source: 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

“Some novelists are luckier than others in the eras of their formative intellectual years, but all Weltanschauungs return, which means that most novelists have at least a chance of a revival.”

Years Mean Chance Return Intellectual Eras Novelists Revival

Book:13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Source: 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

“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.”

Art Home Cities Novel Honesty Fine Offers Towns Library Clubs Awakening Fine Arts Banned Scandalous Home Town

Author:Jane Smiley