Quotes by Jane Smiley

I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later. I don’t think it is years themselves, or the disintegration of the body. Most of our bodies are better taken care of and better-looking than ever. What it is, is what we know, now that in spite of ourselves we have stopped to think about it. It is not only that we know that love ends, children are stolen, parents die feeling that their lives have been meaningless. It is not only that, by this time, a lot of acquaintances and friends have died and all the others are getting ready to sooner or later. It is more that the barriers between the circumstances of oneself and of the rest of the world have broken down, after all—after all that schooling, all that care. Lord, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. But when you are thirty-three, or thirty-five, the cup must come around, cannot pass from you, and it is the same cup of pain that every mortal drinks from. Dana cried over Mrs. Hilton. My eyes filled during the nightly news. Obviously we were grieving for ourselves, but we were also thinking that if they were feeling what we were feeling, how could they stand it? We were grieving for them, too. I understand that later you come to an age of hope, or at least resignation. I suspect it takes a long time to get there.

...I had been with my father so constantly for so long that I knew less and less about him with every passing year. Every meaningful image was jumbled together with the countless moments of our daily life defeating my efforts to gain some perspective.

Every spot on earth is particular, detailed, and incomprehensibly complex.

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

Evil people must spread their evil everywhere.

This is true, at the least, that no veil of beauty hides the evils from our sight.

There were no toys under the bed--that wasnt why he liked it. Why he liked it was that there wasnt anything under the bed--no chickens, no Joey, no Eloise, no sheep, no nos. He could lie under the bed and not be told anything at all.

There were no toys under the bed--that wasnt why he liked it. Why he liked it was that there wasnt anything under the bed--no chickens, no Joey, no Eloise, no sheep, no nos. He could lie under the bed and not be told anything at all

Upstairs, in the cupboard, he had a box of things he had saved as a boy and a young man. He hadnt looked into it in twenty years or more. Nothing fancy or valuable, but things that had meant something to him at one time. He found it, and found the key, and carried it downstairs without opening it.

Almonds. Apricots. Avocadoes. Some peaches I dont know. Grapefruit. Lemones. Probably oranges.

She always said, When Im home, Ive got to get things done, even if there are visitors. Elizabeth knows how to relax in her own house. And then she would shake her head, as if Elizabeth had remarkable powers.

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.

Still others reflected on how quickly the food could be snatched from a mans table, or the child from a womans breast, or the wife from a mans bedcloset, that no strength of grasp could hold these goods in place. And others remarked to themselves how sweet these goods were, in spite of that, and saw that pleasure lost in every moment is pleasure lost forever.

You know what getting married is? Its agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because youre the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. Youre his responsibility now and hes yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he wont. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time?

Twenty-five, he was. Twenty-five tomorrow. Some years the snow had melted for his birthday, but not this year, and so it had been a long winter full of cows.

But he was sixty-two when I was, born, and the novelty of daughters had worn away long before.

The body, the mind, and the spirit dont form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body isnt below the mind and the spirit; from the point of view its between them. if you reside too much in the mind, then you get too abstract and cut off from the world. You long for the spiritual life, but you cant get to it, and you fall into despair. The exercise of the senses frees you from abstraction and opens the way to transcendence.

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

People with good intentions never give up!

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.