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

Zadie Smith

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

Lose Shadow Teeth White
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
We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Ignored Something Worthy
Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.
ZADIE SMITH

Fashionable Lubricant School
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
ZADIE SMITH

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

Novel Pain Problem
You can feel bad… I mean, that’s not illegal.
ZADIE SMITH

Bad Feel Illegal Mean
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
One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it’s always smarter than you are.
ZADIE SMITH

Form Novel Smarter
Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.
ZADIE SMITH

Rarely Squirrels Tremble
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 greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
ZADIE SMITH

Country Love Lying People
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITH

Achievement Confuse Honour
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITH

Absolutely Essential Library

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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