Zadie SmithThe ideal reader cannot sleep when holding the writer he was meant to be with. ✨ Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith (2003). The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, p.31, Houghton … ▶371DeathReadingThought
Zadie SmithOther 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 … ▶373DeathHumanityReading
Zadie SmithYou are never stronger...than when you land on the other side of despair. ✨ White Teeth: A Novel. Book by Zadie Smith, June 12, 2001.373DeathReading
Zadie SmithSometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of ones own resources.351LifeTime
Zadie SmithSometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just as muddled as I do, and might be happy to tag along with me o… ▶352HumanityLifeLove
Zadie SmithNovels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression ? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yours… ▶341HumorReading
Zadie SmithThen you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,it seems like some long, dirty lie ... and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accide… ▶375DeathReadingThought
Zadie SmithEnglish writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there… ▶364ReadingTime
Zadie SmithThe lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn't matter what the lady believed. ✨ Zadie Smith (2006). On Beauty, p.194, Penguin UK365Death
Zadie SmithThen he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby. ✨ Zadie Smith (2003). White Teeth, p.382, Vintage332Death
Zadie SmithNo matter what anyone says, suicide takes guts. It's for heroes and martyrs, truly vainglorious men. Archie was none of these. He was a man whose significance in the Greater Schem… ▶354Death
Zadie SmithI am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me. ✨ Zadie Smith (2001). White Teeth, p.551, Penguin UK365Death
Zadie SmithDesperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy. ✨ This… ▶332Death
Zadie SmithBut 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 immigr… ▶333DeathHumor
Zadie SmithEnglish, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.344Hope
Zadie SmithThe lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action. ✨ 'We proceed in Iraq as hypocrites and cowards - and the world knows it' by Zadie S… ▶322Death
Zadie SmithI like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.333HumanityReading
Zadie SmithYou say you want to talk, But you don't . You stonewall me.356Love
Zadie SmithOh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half. ✨ Zadie Smith (2006). On Beauty, p.183, Penguin UK312Death
Zadie SmithHe was bookish, she was not; he was theoretical, she political. She called a rose a rose. He called it an accumulation of cultural and biological constructions circulating around … ▶356DeathPoliticsReading
Zadie SmithWe cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.312Love
Zadie SmithWork on a computer that is disconnected from the internet. ✨ Zadie Smith's rules for writers. www.vice.com. February 22, 2010.356Death
Zadie SmithSometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.357HumanityTime
Zadie Smith(Feedback) People become addicted to it. That’s why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patie… ▶379HumanityThought
Zadie SmithYou must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence. ✨ Zadie Smith (2003). White Teeth, p.86, Vintage368DeathLife
Zadie SmithThe roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there'… ▶291Death
Zadie SmithIt's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange. ✨ We are family. Interview with Laura Barton, www.… ▶357Humor
Zadie SmithDon't confuse honours with achievement. ✨ Zadie Smith's rules for writers by Zadie Smith, www.theguardian.com. February 22, 2010.291Death
Zadie SmithThis is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living. ✨ Zadie Smith (2006). On Beauty, p.277, Penguin UK3710DeathLife
Zadie SmithIf religion is the opiate of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears sinister. If religion is a tight band, a throbbing vein, an… ▶369DeathHumanity
