Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention.… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
She had that thing most people don't have - curiosity. She might not have always got the right answers, but she wanted… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I just realized quite early on that I'm not going to be the type who can write a novel every two years.… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
The really heroic thing about Nick Hornby is that he lives in north London and rarely leaves it... Every English writer needs… — 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
