Zadie Smith Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply

  Zadie Smith

  Thinking, Essentials

  11 Copy quote

• No fiction, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into language.

  Zadie Smith

  Lying, Tangled, Soul

  Zadie Smith (2001). “White Teeth”, p.408, Penguin UK

  12 Copy quote

• Revelation is where all crazy people end up. It's the last stop on the nutso express.

  Zadie Smith

  Crazy, People, Lasts

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.327, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people's, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception.

  Zadie Smith

  Lying, Believe, Writing

  7 Copy quote

• Try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

  Zadie Smith

  Writing, Enemy, Trying

  "Zadie Smith's rules for writers". www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2010.

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• It seems to me now that the deep structures [in writing] are often subconscious and set in childhood.

  Zadie Smith

  Writing, Childhood, Structure

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.

  Zadie Smith

  Writing, Tricks, Novel

  "Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays". Book by Zadie Smith, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• For me, [deep structures] might be something very simply to do with the split in my family. That's why I'm always thinking about opposites. It's so childish, really, but that might be simply what it is.

  Zadie Smith

  Thinking, Opposites, Splits

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle.

  Zadie Smith

  Years, People, Historical

  8 Copy quote

• Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.

  Zadie Smith

  Hands, Veils, Telling The Truth

  "Zadie Smith's rules for writers" by Zadie Smith, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

• When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.

  Zadie Smith

  Men, Two, Going Away

  4 Copy quote

• She loved you in the morning because the day was new.

  Zadie Smith

  Morning

  Zadie Smith (2003). “The Autograph Man”, p.279, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your pages.

  Zadie Smith

  Real, Insightful, Different

  Zadie Smith (2005). “Martha and Hanwell”, Penguin Hardcover

  7 Copy quote

• I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.

  Zadie Smith

  Writing, Thinking, Opposites

  "Geek gek, n (slang ) A misfit, a rebel, sometimes a troublemaker. 'While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius' (Apple Computer advertising campaign, 1997) Top 50 Geeks 1-25 (Part 1 of 2)". www.heraldscotland.com. July 16, 2005.

  6 Copy quote

• The belief that consciousness extends beyond death is surely to put more belief in the permanence of self, not less. That seems to me a comfort that you're allowing yourself.

  Zadie Smith

  Self, Comfort, Belief

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  8 Copy quote

• Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.

  Zadie Smith

  Order, Said, Difficult

  Zadie Smith (2003). “The Autograph Man: A Novel”, p.329, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.

  Zadie Smith

  Writing, Might, Reason

  9 Copy quote

• I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.

  Zadie Smith

  Perspective, Trying, Novelists

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• ...despite all this, it is still hard to admit that there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English. There are still young white men who are angry about that; who will roll out at closing time into the poorly lit streets with a kitchen knife wrapped in a tight fist. But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution, disappearance.

  Zadie Smith

  Men, White Man, Knives

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.272, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her." "Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.

  Zadie Smith

  Girl, Fall, Mean

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.83, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Our children will be born of our actions. Our accidents will become their destinies. Oh, the actions will remain. It is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. When the fat lady is singing. When the walls are falling in, and the sky is dark, and the ground is rumbling. In that moment our actions will define us. And it makes no difference whether you are being watched by Allah, Jesus, Buddah, or whether you are not. On cold days a man can see his breath, on a hot day he can't. On both occasions, the man breathes.

  Zadie Smith

  Jesus, Children, Wall

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.87, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• Full stories are as rare as honesty.

  Zadie Smith

  Honesty, Stories

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.209, Vintage

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• It's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange.

  Zadie Smith

  Rap, Funny Things, Strange

  "We are family". Interview with Laura Barton, www.theguardian.com. March 3, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• Each couple is its own vaudeville act.

  Zadie Smith

  Couple, Vaudeville

  4 Copy quote

• It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy

  Zadie Smith

  Philosophy, Easy

  4 Copy quote

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