Quotes from Jane Smiley

There was a word Papa always shook his head after pronouncing—it was "bank." Frank wasn't sure which of the three things that could go wrong at a bank Papa was worried about—the bank "going under," the bank "cutting him off," or the bank getting robbed.

This was an aspect of Barbie-hood that Mary had never given any thought to, that Barbie created Ken, anatomically incorrect to the very core of his brain, where he understood as well as he understood his own name that Barbie was inviolable.

She always said, 'When I'm home, I've 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.

Dana seemed to me to be sort of like a hot-air balloon. The more weight we could hang on her, in terms of children, houses, belongings, foodstuffs, office equipment, and debts, the harder it would be for her to gain altitude.

experience, that was true of everyone, even Joey, who hardly ever tried to get away with anything, but had killed a bluebird with the slingshot Frank had given him and gotten away with it—Mama did not allow them to shoot at songbirds. Frank himself got away with so many things that he expected to do whatever he pleased, and he did.

Those who are especially destructive they call 'wolves' or 'jackals,' but there is no wolf or jackal in the world who has been remotely as destructive as the average human.

poking around in this dump, as it would be

Labeling them, in fact, prevented knowing them.

Her idea was that there was no such thing as provocation, that no matter what she did, Pete simply should not hit her, and therefore if he did hit her he was entirely wrong, and therefore she was perfectly free to do whatever she wanted. The result was that I lived in fear for her. Once she said, "If it were you being hit, you wouldn't be afraid, either. You'd be mad, I promise.

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 can't get to it, and you fall into despair. The exercise of the senses frees you from abstraction and opens the way to transcendence.

I dream about standing in the lunch line naked. It's always the lunch line in ninth grade. Nakedness dreams are very common. I suppose they are.

no matter how hard she tried to love them equally and for themselves, as Jesus loved all the little children, was now not the favorite. She thought of a phrase from the Bible—where, she did not know—"In all that has happened to

It is hard to know whether an air of self-confidence precedes or follows success.

Curiosity in humans is to be punished—it leads to disaster.

It seems clear, though, from the history of novel writing since Dickens's time, that the production of enduring literary art has little or no relationship to market success, except insofar as a publisher can fund the publication of more complex and difficult works with the profits of a steady stream of popular stories. Even the most "loyal" readers grow "disloyal" when the work fails to please them.

us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.

I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future.

Sometimes these days Dean felt like picking up the phone and calling his buddy Michael Jordan and chortling with him over how he'd played Continental Dairy Industries off against National Milk, but of course he didn't have Michael's number.

In those days all stories ended with the wedding.

But now I saw with fresh conviction that is was us, all of us, who were failing, and the hallmark of our failure was the way we ate with our heads down, hungrily, quickly, because there was nothing else to do at the table

Holiday Association.

Frankie sticking his tongue out. Joe knew that Frankie knew that Joe knew he was sticking his tongue out, so it was no use to pretend

She was a Tri Delt, majoring in finding a diamond ring.

Ahora que casi no recuerdo su rostro, ni cómo era su cama, estoy segura de que en realidad no lo quería a él, lo que yo quería era ser él