People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
ZADIE SMITHPeople profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
ZADIE SMITHCambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.
ZADIE SMITHTime is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITHThe library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITHI’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 SMITHThe greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
ZADIE SMITHFor me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.
ZADIE SMITHYou’re a library of me.
ZADIE SMITH…They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
ZADIE SMITHThe 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 SMITHWe cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
ZADIE SMITHFull stories are as rare as honesty.
ZADIE SMITHI often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
ZADIE SMITHDon’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITHThe secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
ZADIE SMITHI am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.
ZADIE SMITH