I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures. – Jane Smiley
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. – Jane Smiley
When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I told my mother that my best friend and I were driving to California. She laughed out loud – 2,000 miles in a what? Well, my best friend had an old Chevy. What could go wrong? – Jane Smiley
Vets do what doctors used to – diagnose the injury or the condition, patch it up as best they can and remind you that these things happen and that in life we are also in the midst of death. – Jane Smiley
In a mans letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives. – Samuel Johnson