Quotes by Jane Smiley

“In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it.”

“A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.”

“I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures”

“My characters never die screaming in rage. They attempt to pull themselves back together and go on. And thats basically a conservative view of life.”

“As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral.”

“Your sons werent made to like you. Thats what grandchildren are for.”

“Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel”

“Look at Me.”

“Oh, that sound? Im in the hot tub, reading a novel.”

“Writing this book was incredibly fun because I soaked in the bathtub, laid around eating chocolate in bed, cooked dinner for my family and read novels the whole time.”

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

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.

Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction. We have to stand up to that, and say, at least to ourselves, that what he’s done before is still with us, still right here in this room until there’s true remorse. Nothing will be right until there’s that.” “He looks so, sort of, weakened.” “Weakened is not enough. Destroyed isn’t enough. He’s got to repent and feel humiliation and regret. I won’t be satisfied until he knows what he is.”Do we know what we are?We know we aren’t him. We know that to that degree we don’t yet deserve the lowest circle of hell.

My mind is like a room where the door swings free in the breeze, and many visitors come and go and stay and vanish as they will.

Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the grass and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and God is completion.

Had I faced all the facts It seemed like I had but actually you never know just by remembering how many there were to have faced.

The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.

Arthur said, You must know that you dont love children for being good or bad. I know you know that.Why do you love them?Because you do, said Arthur. Because they dont know whats coming and maybe you do.

I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything youve bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch em carry it off, and you dont care. Thats more like how it was.

So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didnt forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you cant stand what you know. I resisted that reflex. Thats my sole, solitary, lonely accomplishment.