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She often wondered whether cleanliness drove love away. Fastidious, she suspected that life itself was to be found in dirt and disorder, in unknown dark substances that she was hesitant to touch.

— Jane Smiley The Age of Grief (1987)

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More quotes by Jane Smiley

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2006)

She said, “Some are born bossy, some achieve bossiness, and some have bossiness thrust upon them.”

Golden Age (2015)

The novel is, above all, an intense experience of prolonged intimacy with another consciousness.

Charles Dickens (2003)

What truly horsey girls discover in the end is that boyfriends, husbands, children, and careers are the substitute — for horses.

A Year at the Races (2004)

I learned why "out riding alone" is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse.

All Jane Smiley quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jane Smiley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.