I was asked by an editor to consider writing something about an American inventor. I asked him if he knew who invented the computer. He said he didn’t. In that case, I told him, I should write a book about John Vincent Atanasoff. Jane Smiley Read Quote
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 Read Quote
We sort of read two or three big newspapers but we don’t get the flavor of the local events, the local news as much. Jane Smiley Read Quote
Most of my childhood revolved around wondering when we would be blown up by the Russians. I couldn’t stand the news, I knew that if the missile were launched, mortality would arrive in half an hour, so I spent a lot of my childhood feeling that I was 30 minutes from being dead. Jane Smiley Read Quote
With any novel that you begin, you can’t foresee how difficult or easy it’s going to be, and you can’t really prepare yourself. You just have a take it one step at a time and know that it’s all right to keep going – you can always fix it. Jane Smiley Read Quote
Literature – novels, plays, and poems – can have an uncanny dual life, where they simultaneously represent something eternal and something historical, and this is often how they are taught in school. Jane Smiley Read Quote
The brave view is that talking it out helps work it out. Maybe the realistic view is that talking it out inflames the issues further. But that is America, especially these days. Jane Smiley Read Quote
Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works. Jane Smiley Read Quote
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 going, and tell yourself that you will fix it later. Jane Smiley Read Quote
