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.

— Jane Smiley

Almonds. Apricots. Avocados. Some peaches I don't know. Grapefruit. Lemons. Probably oranges.

— Jane Smiley

Arthur said, You must know that you don't love children for being good or bad. I know you know that. Why do you love them? Because you do, said Arthur. Because they don't know what's coming and maybe you do.

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

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.

— Jane Smiley

English majors understand human nature better than economists do.

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

Evil people must spread their evil everywhere.

— Jane Smiley

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?

— 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. Furthermore, 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 is 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.

— Jane Smiley