black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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

Action Alternatives Lack
Time is how you spend your love.
ZADIE SMITH

Emotion Express Feeling Love Spend
Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don’t join fashionable ‘schools of thought.’ Read everything.
ZADIE SMITH

Fashionable Lubricant School
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
Full stories are as rare as honesty.
ZADIE SMITH

Coverage Emotion Full Honesty Story
We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Ignored Something Worthy
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
You can feel bad… I mean, that’s not illegal.
ZADIE SMITH

Bad Feel Illegal Mean
You’re a library of me.
ZADIE SMITH

Attention Express Feeling Library
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITH

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

Author Define Dictionary Sole
The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
ZADIE SMITH

Edit Secret Simple
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
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 often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
ZADIE SMITH

Idea Nostalgic Worry
Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
ZADIE SMITH

Achievement Confuse Honour

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Zadie Smith Quotes