Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith FRSL is an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 October 1975
lying writing bridges
Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.
pain distance eyebrows
... don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own... Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt.
honesty stories
Full stories are as rare as honesty.
past truth-is ends
In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.
dark people needs
Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts.
ecstatic decades
The nineties, ecstatic decade!
expression taste belief
All tastes are expressions of belief.
school fashionable
Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don't join fashionable 'schools of thought.' Read everything.
love simple years
The golden age of Luncheon Vouchers ended ten yearsago. For ten years Mickey had been saying, "The goldenage of Luncheon Vouchers is over." And that's what Archieloved about O'Connell's. Everything was remembered,nothing was lost. History was never revised orreinterpreted, adapted or whitewashed. It was as solid andas simple as the encrusted egg on the clock.
strong new-york ambition
You don't come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. A reality shaped around your own desires - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.
believe circles people
People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.
book roots want
As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.
lying cutting convince-us
All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.
writing voice people
Every genuinely literary style, from the high authorial voice to Foster Wallace and his footnotes-within-footnotes, requires the reader to see the world from somewhere in particular, or from many places. So every novelist's literary style is nothing less than an ethical strategy - it's always an attempt to get the reader to care about people who are not the same as he or she is.