Zadie Smith Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.”

“When I think of the books I love, there's always a little laughter in the dark.”

“Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.”

“Some people like just sitting down and being taken for a ride. That's a beautiful thing that fiction can do. But it's not the only thing. In television and film, people are ready to accept any kind of jump cut, but the slightest disturbance on the page ruffles their feathers.”

“All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it.”

“It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.”

“Young people understand the world. They should be listened to on matters of politics and world organization. But they know nothing of their own lives.”

“Any artist who aligns themselves with a politician is making a category error because what politicians do is not on a human scale, it is on a geopolitical scale.”

“Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.”

“I can't add. I don't understand basic science. Or anything else. But I can read anything. I've always been able to, and I've always liked to. Even if I didn't understand it, I liked to.”