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

Zadie Smith

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
I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.
ZADIE SMITH

Insight Novelist Political
The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
ZADIE SMITH

Edit Secret Simple
Time is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITH

Emotion Express Feeling Love Spend
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
I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
ZADIE SMITH

Belief Fun Heterosexuality
The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
ZADIE SMITH

Country Love Lying People
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
ZADIE SMITH

Action Alternatives Lack
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
For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.
ZADIE SMITH

Novel Pain Problem
Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.
ZADIE SMITH

Fashionable Lubricant School
You can feel bad… I mean, that’s not illegal.
ZADIE SMITH

Bad Feel Illegal Mean
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
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
Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.
ZADIE SMITH

Rarely Squirrels Tremble
We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Ignored Something Worthy

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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