DEATH OF A PARENT

'I have often thought that the death of a parent is the one misfortune for which there is no compensation. Even when circumstances don't compound it. Even when others who love the child move quickly and smoothly to guard it and care for it. There is not any wisdom to be gained from the death of a parent. There are no memories of the parent that are not rendered painful by the death, no event surrounding the death that is redeemed by a single happy thought.'  

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres, p.292. 

LOSING A MOTHER

'If there is anything more difficult or more real than the death of one's mother, I don't know what it is.'

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres, p.54.

FRIENDSHIP

'Seeing him somewhere was always a pleasure, like taking a drink of water.'

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres, p.7.

DESIRE

'There is something I have noticed about desire, that it opens the eyes and strikes them blind at the same time.'

Jane Smiley, 'The Age of Grief' in The Age of Grief, p.151.

SUFFERING

'I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no-one arrives much later. I don't think it is years themselves, or the disintegration of the body. Most of our bodies are better taken care of and better-looking than ever. What it is, is what we know, now that in spite of ourselves we have stopped to think about it. It is not only that we know that love ends, children are stolen, parents die feeling that their lives have been meaningless. It is not only that, by this time, a lot of acquaintances and friends have died and all the others are getting ready to sooner or later. It is more that the barriers between the circumstances of oneself and the rest of the world have broken down, after all - after all that schooling, after all that care. Lord, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. But when you are thirty-three, or thirty-five, the cup must come around, cannot pass from you, and it is the same cup that every mortal drinks from.' 

Jane Smiley, 'The Age of Grief' in The Age of Grief, p.132.

PARENTING

'There is no subsequent achievement that parent wants of child with more ardor than the accomplishment of eight hours at a stretch, during the night.'

Jane Smiley, 'The Age of Grief' in The Age of Grief: A novella and stories of love, marriage and friendship, p.112.