Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them. Jane Smiley Read Quote
With horses, familiarity breeds comfort. If you haven’t been around horses for a while (or ever), the best thing to do is to go to the racetrack, a horse show, a rodeo, or some other horsey activity, and watch the horses. Familiarize yourself with the way they move and behave themselves. Jane Smiley Read Quote
I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once. Jane Smiley Read Quote
Eavesdrop and write it down from memory – gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop! Jane Smiley Read Quote
As Fallingwater demonstrates, Wright’s genius was always specific, but also always lively, always daring. Jane Smiley Read Quote
There are hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings around the United States and in other countries, too. Wright lived into his 90s, and one of his most famous buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, was completed just before his death. Wright buildings look like Wright buildings – that is their paradox. Jane Smiley Read Quote
In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion. Jane Smiley Read Quote
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 Read Quote
In December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known. Jane Smiley Read Quote
