everything is toxic. That's the point. You can't avoid toxins. Thinking you can is just another symptom of the toxic overload stage. Jane Smiley More Quotes by Jane Smiley More Quotes From Jane Smiley Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. Jane Smiley united-states ignorance long Horse racing is really much more intimidating than anything having to do with literature. When I had horses at the racetrack, I would wake up in terror in a way that I would never wake up while working on a novel. Jane Smiley horse wake-up racing As Fallingwater demonstrates, Wright's genius was always specific, but also always lively, always daring. Jane Smiley lively daring genius Before I write a novel, images float around in my head that work like icons - they are meaningless in themselves, but serve as reminders. Jane Smiley reminders icons writing The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories. Jane Smiley different stories numbers Charles Dickens was an avid seeker of names - he read directories and looked for odd names on gravestones. Jane Smiley avid poetry names Whatever you love is beautiful; love comes first, beauty follows. The greater your capacity for love, the more beauty you find in the world. Jane Smiley love-is beautiful world Americans took a great deal too much credit for creating wealth, when most of the time they had really just been living off natural bounty unprecedented in the history of the world. Jane Smiley creating united-states too-much Novelists never have to footnote. Jane Smiley footnotes novelists Vets do what doctors used to - diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind you that these things happen and that in life we are also in the midst of death. Jane Smiley injury vets doctors The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel. Jane Smiley novel desire writing There weren't too many books by women that were taught in school, so I read those on my own, and the books I read were as accessible as the ones we were reading in school. Jane Smiley reading book school The only siblings I have are half-siblings. My nuclear family would have been an extra-suffocating threesome. Instead, I have an interesting brother and sister, in-laws, and darling nephews. Jane Smiley sister-in-law sibling brother Another thing he told his customers was that one of the great accounting unknowns of the modern age was how to value knowledge. It was an exciting field. Jane Smiley assessment fields age 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. Jane Smiley happy-birthday winter years When people leave, they always seem to scoop themselves out of you. Jane Smiley seems people The essence of charity ... was not deciding what others needed and giving it to them, but giving them what they wanted. Jane Smiley charity essence giving 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. Jane Smiley tolerance individuality ideas When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment. Jane Smiley believe father children Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect. Jane Smiley rough-drafts goal perfect
