I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace,… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I read Carver. Julio Cortazar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I just can't get used to the idea of being somebody unreal in people's minds. I can't live my life like that.… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me,… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for 'The… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Unless you consider yourself some sort of human brand, which I don't, you have to deal with the fact that different people… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Some people like just sitting down and being taken for a ride. That's a beautiful thing that fiction can do. But it's… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
It's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
There's constantly this melancholy about British hip-hop. People are always waiting for it to explode like American hip-hop, but it might just… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Like all readers, I want my limits to be drawn by my own sensibilities, not by my melanin count. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
- You look fine. - Right. I look fine. Except I don't, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
“Pretty girls lie at the centre of straight culture, dyke culture, fag culture. They sell everything, they buy everything, they ruin great men and… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
“I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
“Either everything is sacred or nothing is. And if he starts burning other people’s things, then he loses something sacred also. Everyone gets what’s… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts,… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
“In short, it was precisely the kind of friendship and Englishman makes on holiday, that he can make only on holiday. A friendship that… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I suppose I often think of my writing as quite impersonal. But it turned out, when my father died, writing was exactly what I… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
“Some of us are happy with our African hair, thank you very much. I don't want some poor Indian girl's hair. And I wish… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
