My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
(Feedback) People become addicted to it. That’s why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here,… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
It's got two aspects. The bit that involves the public life I could not really tolerate and cannot really tolerate. I just… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think my whole professional life has been based on this hunch I had, early on, that many people feel just… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
My life is black and white and mixed. My mother's a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy - it's not… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I wouldn't write about people who are living and who are close to me, because I think it's a very violent thing… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
The young people have a phrase for this now, which is "slay in your lane." That's a very important principle of writing.… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of… — 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
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 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
Revelation is where all crazy people end up. It's the last stop on the nutso express. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
People with children will know this: when the childcare is over, it's over on the dot. You immediately have to go into… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
This is what divorce is: taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love. — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Books are not brands. Some people are very willing to see themselves as a brand, but you can't be a certain type… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination:… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
I know a lot of people who read and think: "George [Saunders] is so much fun." There's no denying you're fun to… — Zadie Smith Copy Share Image
This, after all, was the month in which families began tightening and closing and sealing; from Thanksgiving to the New Year, everybody's… — 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
