Zadie Smith Quotes

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Zadie Smith

Profession : Novelist

Birth : October 25, 1975

I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.

Zadie Smith

It seems to me that we often commit ourselves wholly to something while knowing almost nothing concrete about it. Another word for that, I suppose, is 'faith.'

Zadie Smith

I want to write without shame or pride or over-compensation in one direction or another. To write freely.

Zadie Smith

All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.

Zadie Smith

I love to dance, and sing - in the shower, not in public. I'm too old to go raving, but my fondest memories are of that kind of thing - dancing, with lots of people, outside if possible.

Zadie Smith

I can't add. I don't understand basic science. Or anything else. But I can read anything. I've always been able to, and I've always liked to. Even if I didn't understand it, I liked to.

Zadie Smith

Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?

Zadie Smith

I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.

Zadie Smith

I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.

Zadie Smith

Unless you consider yourself some sort of human brand, which I don't, you have to deal with the fact that different people are going to like different aspects of your work. It's not consistent. I am not consistent. But I feel OK with that.

Zadie Smith

Some people like just sitting down and being taken for a ride. That's a beautiful thing that fiction can do. But it's not the only thing. In television and film, people are ready to accept any kind of jump cut, but the slightest disturbance on the page ruffles their feathers.

Zadie Smith

Working with great writers can be humbling and frightening, but it can also change you for good, forever.

Zadie Smith