# Quote — Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres

> Even though I felt her presence, I also felt the habitual fruitlessness of thinking about her. Her images, partly memories of her, partly memories of photos I had seen of her, yielded no new answers to old mysteries.

- Author: [Jane Smiley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley.md)
- Book: [A Thousand Acres](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/a-thousand-acres.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jane_Smiley#A_Thousand_Acres_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/a-thousand-acres/even-though-i-felt

## More from this book

> All I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn’t forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can’t stand what you know. I resisted that reflex. That’s my sole, solitary, lonely accomplishment.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/a-thousand-acres/all-i-have.md)

> She dressed to look good, and I dressed for obscurity.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/a-thousand-acres/she-dressed-to-look.md)

> Shame is a distinct feeling. I couldn’t look at my hands around the coffee cup or hear my own laments without feeling appalled, wanting desperately to fall silent, grow smaller. More than that, I was uncomfortably conscious of my whole body, from the awkward way that the shafts of my hair were thrusting out of my scalp to my feet, which felt dirty as well as cold. Everywhere, I seemed to feel my skin from the inside, as if it now stood away from my flesh, separated by a millimeter of mortified space.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/a-thousand-acres/shame-is-a-distinct.md)