Books Quote by Zadie Smith
““Maybe every author needs to keep faith with Nabokov, and every reader with Barthes. For how can you write, believing in Barthes? Still, I’m glad I’m not the reader I was in college anymore, and I’ll tell you why: it made me feel lonely. Back then I wanted to tear down the icon of the author and abolish, too, the idea of a privileged reader—the text was to be a free, wild thing, open to everyone, belonging to no one, refusing an ultimate meaning. Which was a powerful feeling, but also rather isolating, because it jettisons the very idea of communication, of any possible genuine link between the person who writes and the person who reads. Nowadays I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own. To this end I find myself placing a cautious faith in the difficult partnership between reader and writer, that discrete struggle to reveal an individual’s experience of the world through the unstable medium of language. Not a refusal of meaning, then, but a quest for it.””
About This Quote
Source Essay: “The Reader and the Writer,” The New Yorker, 2015
The writer reflects on moving from a rebellious stance against authorial authority to a more collaborative view, seeking connection through shared humanity.
In simple terms: Readers and writers need each other for meaning.
Key Takeaway
Embrace partnership between author and audience.
Themes
literature
communication
identity
solitude
Mood
introspective
hopeful
Type
philosophical
inspirational
When to use this quote
- creative writing workshops
- book clubs
- online forums
- personal journaling
Key Concepts
poststructuralism
reader-response theory
Questions to Reflect On
- How does collaboration change the creative process?
- Can true understanding ever be achieved between writer and reader?
A Different Perspective
The desire for connection may conflict with the need for independent interpretation.
