Zadie Smith

“Right. I look fine. Except I don't,' said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having…

— Zadie Smith

Any woman who counts on her face is a fool.

— Zadie Smith

“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can…

— Zadie Smith

World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?'

— Zadie Smith

“Sacrifice was nine tenths of parenting.”

— Zadie Smith

If you asked me if I wanted more joyful experiences in my life, I wouldn't be at all sure I did, exactly…

— Zadie Smith

When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what…

— Zadie Smith

But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the…

— Zadie Smith

A trauma is something one repeats and repeats, after all, and this is the tragedy of the Iqbals--that they can't help but…

— Zadie Smith

Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]

— Zadie Smith

First rule of writing: When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than…

— Zadie Smith

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

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

The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.

— Zadie Smith

“...within our intimacy, I could not be a girl, nor could I be anyone's baby, I could only be a female human,…

— Zadie Smith

It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

— Zadie Smith

The end is simply the beginning of an even longer story.

— Zadie Smith

“A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system…

— Zadie Smith

“I thought of all the singers and dancers and trumpet players and sculptors and scribblers who had claimed to feel like people,…

— Zadie Smith

'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

— Zadie Smith

“What do you want to do Marvin?" croaked Alex, and then coughed the frog out. "Excuse me?" "Apart from being a milk…

— Zadie Smith

“Blimey, thought Kelvin, what an eye-to-face ratio. When you want to say something delicate, you don't want that eye-to-face ration staring up…

— Zadie Smith

Desperation, weakness, vulnerability - these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger…

— Zadie Smith

“People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and…

— Zadie Smith

Any artist who aligns themselves with a politician is making a category error because what politicians do is not on a human…

— Zadie Smith