43 Zadie Smith Quotes for You to Enjoy

Zadie Smith

British Novelist

Born: Oct 25, 1975

Always Me People Think Time You

Related authors: Anne Bronte Charles Morgan Charlotte Bronte Hector Hugh Munro Helen Oyeyemi Jeanette Winterson Matt Haig Roald Dahl

When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. Zadie Smith

When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for 'The Simpsons' who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life. Zadie Smith

Life Me Religious Joined Write Simpsons Like Wrote Editor Cult Discovered Wanted The Simpsons Unfortunately Script Kafka Then

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality. Zadie Smith

You Equality State Also Understand Difference Sameness

My life is black and white and mixed. My mother's a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy - it's not an affectation. It's also the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Zadie Smith

Life People World Mother Black Black And White My Life White Guy Throughout Also Mixed Affectation Short Dad Lives Millions Millions Of People

Don't confuse honours with achievement. Zadie Smith

Achievement Confuse Honours

Novels 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 yourself. Zadie Smith

Funny Beautiful You Yourself Clever Organic Ring About Something Self-Expression Yard Go Want Express Express Yourself Novels Expressing Bell

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. Zadie Smith

Day You Books Out Find Indian Mutiny About Catalogue Concerned WWII Get Want As Far As Thee Far Roots Last

I just can't get used to the idea of being somebody unreal in people's minds. I can't live my life like that. And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy. Zadie Smith

Life People Somebody My Life Healthy Live Minds Anathema Unreal Writer Idea Like Get Just Being Used

You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books. Zadie Smith

Normally, young writers have all the time in the world and they don't always use it well. Zadie Smith

Time World Young Writers Well Always Normally Young Writers Use

I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers. Zadie Smith

Family Writing About Most Talking Friends Newspapers Honest

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time. Zadie Smith

Time Good You Book Mistakes Write Make Cautious Going Good Book

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

You Become Other Approach Find Having Writer Always Real Real Human Begin Represent Human Short Different Human Beings Short Story Story Pages Your Appear Beings Things

There is no bigger crime, in the English comic novel, than thinking you are right. Zadie Smith

You Crime Thinking Comic Than Bigger English Novel Right

We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Zadie Smith

Time We Cannot Only Writers Cannot Who

I read Carver. Julio Cortazar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me. Zadie Smith

Me Moore Carver Like Read Sound Essays Anything Capote

I just realized quite early on that I'm not going to be the type who can write a novel every two years. I think you need to feel an urgency about the act. Otherwise, when you read it, you feel no urgency, either. So I don't write unless I really feel I need to, and that's a luxury. Zadie Smith

You Luxury Every Think Otherwise Type Unless About Write Feel Read Years Going Quite Just Either Urgency Realized Really Act Who Novel Early Two Need

I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical. Zadie Smith

Like all readers, I want my limits to be drawn by my own sensibilities, not by my melanin count. Zadie Smith

Own Drawn My Own Count Like Readers Limits Want Sensibilities

World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?' Zadie Smith

World First Network Makers How Question Social Ask

A lot of people seem to feel that joy is only the most intense version of pleasure, arrived at by the same road - you simply have to go a little further down the track. That has not been my experience. Zadie Smith

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