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Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.

Zadie Smith

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

Author Define Dictionary Sole
Full stories are as rare as honesty.
ZADIE SMITH

Coverage Emotion Full Honesty Story
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
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 greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
ZADIE SMITH

Country Love Lying People
Time is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITH

Emotion Express Feeling Love Spend
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITH

Achievement Confuse Honour
For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.
ZADIE SMITH

Novel Pain Problem
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 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
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITH

Absolutely Essential Library
You’re a library of me.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Express Feeling Library
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
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

Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.

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Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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