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 SMITHPeople profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
More Zadie Smith Quotes
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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.
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We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
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Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.
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I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
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Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
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I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
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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.
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People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
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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.
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The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
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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.
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…They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
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The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
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I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.
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I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.
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