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We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.

Zadie Smith

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.
ZADIE SMITH

Author Define Dictionary Sole
It’s difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.
ZADIE SMITH

Book People Reveal Tell Truth
I’m very attracted to exile literature – particularly Nabokov – exactly because the idea of being away from home for any serious length of time is so inconceivable to me.
ZADIE SMITH

Home Idea Literature
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITH

Achievement Confuse Honour
One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it’s always smarter than you are.
ZADIE SMITH

Form Novel Smarter
Today, writing seems to me like an incredible luxury, almost a perversity, something which hardly exists in the world anymore, where you get to see the fruits of your actions in a daily way.
ZADIE SMITH

Incredible Luxury World Writing
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
ZADIE SMITH

Action Alternatives Lack
The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
ZADIE SMITH

Edit Secret Simple
I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
ZADIE SMITH

Idea Nostalgic Worry
Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.
ZADIE SMITH

Book People Reading
Full stories are as rare as honesty.
ZADIE SMITH

Coverage Emotion Full Honesty Story
People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
ZADIE SMITH

Interesting People Political
…They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
ZADIE SMITH

Lose Shadow Teeth White
Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.
ZADIE SMITH

Rarely Squirrels Tremble
Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders’] ghosts was a part of it.
ZADIE SMITH

Ghost Risk Sublime
Time is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITH

Emotion Express Feeling Love Spend

We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.

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We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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