Jane Smiley Quotes

Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.

Jane Smiley

• People
• Life
• Why
• Interesting

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Quotes to Explore

• Whether you listen to a piece of music, or a poem, or look at a picture or a jug, or a piece of sculpture, what matters about it is not what it has in common with others of its kind, but what is singularly its own.

  

  Basil Bunting
  • Music
  • Picture
  • Look

• If you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on.

  

  Lance Armstrong
  • Never
  • Bike
  • Falling

• I find very often people like to confront rumors. It depends on how much they trust you. And you have to have a line between what is tasteful and what isn't.

  

  Barbara Walters
  • People
  • Trust
  • Find

• For me, cerebral palsy wasn't the biggest deal, because I always had it. You know, you always work with what you got.

  

  Zach Anner
  • Work
  • Know
  • Deal

• You go down South, and they're quirky; they have culture, and it's not uniformly true of our country. Our country has gotten a little blanded out, big sections of it. Even if you disagree with the politics, you have to appreciate the cuisine, the music, the literature.

  

  J. Smith-Cameron
  • Music
  • Country
  • True

• Adding 'just kidding' doesn't make it okay to insult the Principal.

  

  Nancy Cartwright
  • Insult
  • Okay
  • Principal

• As long as I have my health, I want to be reporting somewhere.

  

  Dan Rather
  • Long
  • Want
  • Health

• Conscience is God present in man.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • God
  • Man
  • Present

• What I do, basically, is look at things from different angles. That is what I do on stage comedically, and that is what I do in art. I was always fascinated by the structure of things, why things work this way and not that way. So I like to see how things behave if you change the point of view.

  

  Ursus Wehrli
  • Work
  • Art
  • Change

• We legitimately walked into 'Anthem' head-on, not paying enough attention to internal band tension.

  

  Isaac Hanson Hanson
  • Attention
  • Band
  • Enough

• It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'

  

  Sam Levenson
  • Remember
  • Hand
  • Son

• Babies are smart. They can tell the difference between a responsive face and a blank face, wiped clean of emotion.

  

  Madeleine M. Kunin
  • Smart
  • Emotion
  • Face

• Take pride in your work at all times. Remember, respect for an umpire is created off the field as well as on.

  Ford Frick
  • Work
  • Remember
  • Respect

• The body dies, but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death.

  

  Ramana Maharshi
  • Death
  • Body
  • Spirit

• Whatever is not commonly seen is condemned as alien.

  

  Iris Chang
  • Alien
  • Seen
  • Whatever

• Laura Bush has the face of my mother when my mother was young. The face, the body, the voice. The first time I saw on TV Laura Bush, I got frozen because it was as if my mother was not dead. 'Oh, Mama,' I said, 'Mama.'

  

  Oriana Fallaci
  • Time
  • Mother
  • Body

• Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.

  

  Pamela Hansford Johnson
  • Only
  • Saints
  • Acceptable

• My father didn't know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather, and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slavemaster.

  

  Malcolm X
  • Father
  • Name
  • Grandfather

• I live in an apartment building built in 1925, and it hasn't been heavily renovated, so I feel very much connected to that time and what went on in that place.

  

  Ben Katchor
  • Time
  • Live

• In sports, the confluence of the 1989 Oakland vs. San Francisco World Series and the Loma Prieta earthquake notwithstanding, the earth rarely moves.

  

  John Gregory Dunne
  • World
  • Earth
  • Sports

• I think backstory is really important to know because I'm all about prep work. I like to do all of my work right away, as soon as I get it. I'm incapable of procrastinating on anything, so I like to do all of the work.

  

  Krysten Ritter
  • Work
  • Important

• Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.

  

  Jane Smiley
  • People
  • Life
  • Why