American - Writer | September 26, 1949 -
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
ChildhoodStandFeelingNewsDead
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.
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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.
LifeSchoolLiteratureHistorical
Why are we reading a Shakespeare play or 'Huckleberry Finn?' Well, because these works are great, but they also tell us something about the times in which they were created. Unfortunately, previous eras and dead authors often used language or accepted as normal sentiments that we now find unacceptable.
GreatReadingLanguageFindPlay
In many ways, being honest about 'Huckleberry Finn' goes right to the heart of whether we can be honest about our heritage and our identity as Americans.
HeartIdentityHeritageRightHonest
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.
WorkBraveViewAmericaTalkingOut
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!
LoveMemoryPeopleStrongerYouHow
Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works.
PeopleIdeasWorldYouGossipWhy
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.
GoodKeep GoingDayHabitYourself
Take naps. Often new ideas come together when you are half asleep, but you have to train yourself to remember them.
TogetherYourselfIdeasRememberYou
I gallop and jump and ride young horses with intense pleasure.
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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.
BestYourselfHorseYouComfortGo
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