I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.
Jane SmileyNovelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance.
Jane SmileyIn December 1998, I considered myself an expert on love. I was almost a year into a relationship, one that had grown more slowly than I had wished, but once it flowered it was much more stimulating than any marriage or relationship I had known.
Jane Smiley