Tag: Zadie Smith
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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
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English 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’s definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
Zadie Smith
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A lot of women, when they’re young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It’s easy to be friends when everyone’s 18.
Zadie Smith
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I wouldn’t write about people who are living and who are close to me, because I think it’s a very violent thing to do to another person. And anytime I have done it, even in the disguise of fiction, the results have been horrific.
Zadie Smith
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Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.
Zadie Smith
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Don’t we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls.
Zadie Smith
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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
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English, 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.
Zadie Smith
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People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
Zadie Smith
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Books are not brands. Some people are very willing to see themselves as a brand, but you can’t be a certain type of writer to a certain type of person all the time. It will kill you.
Zadie Smith