The novel is just fine: It's novelists who aren't doing so well. — Russell Smith Books Copy Share Image
There is something insouciant and boyish about the sockless ankle in summer. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Unseasonal clothing actually only stands out when it's visibly uncomfortable. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Frosh-week songs are meant to be offensive because offensive is rebellious. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
No surprise here: Pop music is by far the most conservative art form there is. — Russell Smith Art Copy Share Image
If people didn't read books on the subway, underground journeys would be dreary. — Russell Smith Books Copy Share Image
If you define eccentricity as creativity, then yes, creativity is eccentricity. — Russell Smith Creativity Copy Share Image
Universities can teach maturity. They can teach teenagers how to be adults, and that means to function outside a clique or a… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
What is a literary festival? Imagine a sort of cross between school and church. There are no actual festivities; what there are… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
What makes a publisher decide to market a book to a particular audience is not the subject matter but the style. — Russell Smith Audience Copy Share Image
From its beginning, fan fiction has been written mostly by women. Originally, this was because of a dearth of interesting female characters… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Fashion has always been in conflict with convention. Style involves some knowledge of both. But you can pretty much forget these seasonal… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
A song is a short composition for voice and instruments. It is a piece of sung poetry set to music. It is… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Wear your clothes with abandon, I say; don't keep them pristine as if for museums: They are meant to wear out. Then… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
“What kind of theorist?' 'The worst kind,' murmured De Courcy. 'A prancing theorist.” — Russell Smith Theorist Copy Share Image
The only pleasurable part of taking the subway, as everyone will agree, is concocting elaborate fantasies about what it would be like… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
My son craves picture books about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and the Hulk; they show one fantastic creature smashing or zapping another… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Most critics of gender division are women, and they're worried about girls and the roles presented for them by gendered entertainments. They… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
My father was a graduate student at Oxford in the early 1960s, where the conventions and etiquette of clothing were crucial to… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end;… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
No matter how fine your suit and your shoes, you will remind everyone that you are not yet a grownup man by… — Russell Smith College Copy Share Image
I don't see my artist friends as any more neurotic or addiction-prone than the others. The roommates I have had who were… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
A suit is just a suit: a practical garment, not a ceremonial robe; it can be worn out to dinner with friends… — Russell Smith Art Copy Share Image
“It used to be that you could get a lot of recognition by writing about Canada, as long as it was about… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Most men are petrified of standing out in any way or being thought superficial. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
What I don't understand is why men have decided that they like wearing hats indoors. It makes no sense to me. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Even in early adulthood, men can't be told what to wear; they can only be subtly moved by example, encouragement, and a… — Russell Smith Adulthood Copy Share Image
I have never, ever, not once, met a writer who said he or she would never read a mystery or a story… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
An Indian tribe is sovereign to the extent that the U.S. permits it to be sovereign. — Russell Smith Indian Copy Share Image
Ah, the intractable Canadian problem: Winter and finery are basically incompatible. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
We are still vulnerable to gender-targeted marketing no matter how carefully we edit our children's bookshelves. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Anything that encourages a boy to open a book, in a world of more violent and therefore more compelling video games, is… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
I am indeed completely nuts, but that doesn't mean I don't care about how I look. Sometimes, I admit, I will privilege… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Canadian writers don't live in gated mansions; you can just talk to them when you see them lining up at the Second… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Verisimilitude is something I am constantly seeking in fiction. I am looking for surface detail that makes something seem real. — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
There is actually no such thing as an Artist type. 'Artist' is just an economic designation, a box you tick on a… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
Only a tiny portion of music history involves a singer and a lyric. Songs in music are generally thought to be a… — Russell Smith Copy Share Image
