Jane Smiley Quotes

“A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.”

“But what truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute-for horses”

“Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.”

“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, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.”

“A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.”

“Like most of the educated, I do harbor a fondness for the sins of my ignorant past.”