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The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.

Zadie Smith

Full stories are as rare as honesty.
ZADIE SMITH

Coverage Emotion Full Honesty Story
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITH

Achievement Confuse Honour
We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Ignored Something Worthy
You’re a library of me.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Express Feeling Library
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
One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it’s always smarter than you are.
ZADIE SMITH

Form Novel Smarter
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
The young people have a phrase for this now, which is “slay in your lane.” That’s a very important principle of writing. You have to work out what it is you can’t do, obscure it, and focus on what works.
ZADIE SMITH

Out People Work Writing
Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.
ZADIE SMITH

Fashionable Lubricant School
Time is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITH

Emotion Express Feeling Love Spend
When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn’t like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.
ZADIE SMITH

Intimate Writing Young
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITH

Absolutely Essential Library
…They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
ZADIE SMITH

Lose Shadow Teeth White
I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
ZADIE SMITH

Idea Nostalgic Worry
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
ZADIE SMITH

Action Alternatives Lack
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.

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The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.

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Popular Authors

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