Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, befo…

- Jane Smiley

Respect and fear are two different things.

- Jane Smiley

Write every day, just to keep in the habit, and remember that whatever you have written is neither as good nor as bad as you think it is. Just keep g…

- Jane Smiley

You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good,…

- Jane Smiley

I love to write about sex. You just have to make it idiosyncratic. You have to have a strong comprehension of your characters, and write it from thei…

- Jane Smiley

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

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

- Jane Smiley

The body, the mind, and the spirit don't form a pyramid, they form a circle. Each of them runs into the other two. The body isn't below the mind and …

- Jane Smiley

I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn.

- Jane Smiley