“I'm just interested in women's friendships generally. It always seems to me, and this is just my pet theory, that women are kind of at the sharp end of capitalism one way or another. Mainly because they buy everything. In a practical sense, women buy most things. They're always comparing - to friends, to famous people, to other people. An obsessive act of comparison.” PeopleWayKindEndsSeemsTheoryCapitalismPracticalsOne WayComparePetComparisonObsessive Author:Zadie Smith
“I was brought up with the sense that I was absolutely no different from my brothers. I went to college thinking I was absolutely no different from the men in college. But that's not true. I'm fundamentally different. The problem was not being able to understand difference and equality at the same time. It's something that we can't seem to comprehend. You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality. It's a mistake.” ThinkingMenDifferentStatesProblemSeemsAbleDifferencesMistakeCollegeHe ManBrotherMy BrotherSameness Author:Zadie Smith
“It seems to me now that the deep structures [in writing] are often subconscious and set in childhood.” WritingSeemsChildhoodStructureSubconscious Author:Zadie Smith
“For example, you have these grotesque, hilarious, profane ghosts in the book [Lincoln in the Bardo]. Even the concept of talking ghosts is, from an aesthetic point of view, grotesque. But you seem compelled by that risk in order to get to the other end of the equation.” BookEndsSeemsOrderViewsTalkingRiskExampleConceptsPoint Of ViewGhostAestheticCompelledEquationsGrotesqueProfane Author:Zadie Smith
“The belief that consciousness extends beyond death is surely to put more belief in the permanence of self, not less. That seems to me a comfort that you're allowing yourself.” SelfSeemsBeliefConsciousnessComfortAllowingPermanence Author:Zadie Smith
“Today, writing seems to me like an incredible luxury, almost a perversity, something which hardly exists in the world anymore, where you get to see the fruits of your actions in a daily way.” WorldWayWritingSeemsTodayActionFruitIncrediblesLuxuryPerversity Author:Zadie Smith
“I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.” KnowsTryingSeemsPleasurePerspectiveArgumentArguingNovelistsOnlineGrumpy Author:Zadie Smith
“It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.” PeopleIfsHumansHelpingSeemsActionMovingPossibilityPaperEthicsConsequenceRealmsEthicalMultipleHuman Actions Author:Zadie Smith
“Boys are just boys after all, but sometimes girls really seem to be the turn of a pale wrist, or the sudden jut of a hip, or a clutch of very dark hair falling across a freckled forehead. I'm not saying that's what they really are. I'm just saying sometimes it seems that way, and that those details (a thigh mole, a full face flush, a scar the precise shape and size of a cashew nut) are so many hooks waiting to land you.” WaySometimesSeemsFacesTurnsFallGirlWaitingDarkBoysLandHairShapesSizeDetailsHipsNutsScarPalePreciseHookForeheadsWristsThighsJust SayingClutchMolesDark HairCashews Author:Zadie Smith
“Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.” ChildrenStillsSeemsWould BeMovingTermSinOriginalsWestRoundsTraumaEastYour ChildrenIslandsImmigrantsHarshRepetitionBack And ForthOriginal Sin Book:White Teeth Source: White Teeth
“Then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,it seems like some long, dirty lie ... and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?” IfsGivingBelieveLongDoeIdeasMatterSeemsLyingCommunityGiving UpAccidentsDirtyBelongingIf You BelieveBirthplace Book:White Teeth: A Novel Source: White Teeth: A Novel
“It seems to me,' said Magid finally, as the moon became clearer than the sun, 'that you have tried to love a man as if he were an island and you were shipwrecked and you could mark the land with an X. It seems to me it is too late in the day for all that.' Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.” IfsMenSaidSeemsFeltSunLandBabyMoonKissingLateMarkIslandsToo LateForeheadsBaptism Book:White Teeth Source: White Teeth
