Tag: Zadie Smith
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Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
Zadie Smith
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I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
Zadie Smith
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I’m never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the novel is a local thing.
Zadie Smith
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Without the balancing context of everyday life, all you have is the news, and news by its nature is generally bad.
Zadie Smith
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Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.
Zadie Smith
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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.
Zadie Smith
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Asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is forever listing the attributes of heavenly armies. Because boasting is a formal condition of the epic form. And those taught that they deserve nothing rightly enjoy it when they succeed in terms the culture understands.
Zadie Smith
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Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
Zadie Smith
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Unless you consider yourself some sort of human brand, which I don’t, you have to deal with the fact that different people are going to like different aspects of your work. It’s not consistent. I am not consistent. But I feel OK with that.
Zadie Smith
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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.
Zadie Smith