I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life's mystery and unpredictability, of life's generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever-changing contemplation.

— Jane Smiley

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.

— Jane Smiley

... 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.

— Jane Smiley

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.

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

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 you've 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 don't care. That's more like how it was.

— Jane Smiley

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

— Jane Smiley

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.

— Jane Smiley

People with good intentions never give up!

— Jane Smiley