“I'm always interested in the way people speak and move in their environment, in a very particular environment. I'm never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the any novel is a local thing always.” PeopleWayWritingKindMovingSpeakNovelEnvironmentParticularUniversalLocals Author:Zadie Smith
“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
“The arena of women's lives is somewhat more intimate. If a woman goes out with an incredibly attractive man and they break up, that woman is not more attractive to men. It's completely irrelevant to them. That's an example of the way women's minds work.” IfsMenWayMindLife IsBreakExampleAttractiveIntimateIrrelevantArenaAttractive Man Author:Zadie Smith
“And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy. But in another way, when I'm writing, what it's about for me is being good on the page. None of that noise could change the way I feel about my writing. Which is not always particularly positive.” WayFeelsWritingHealthyPagesBe GoodNoiseAnother WayAnathema Author:Zadie Smith
“The world is now multicultural the same way the world is round. It's not a selling point, it's not a 'quirky' feature, it's not a cynical marketing ploy, it's not an artistic statement, it's not even a plot device. It's a fact, like seedless grapes.” WorldWayFactsRoundsMarketingStatementsSellingArtisticFeaturesPlotDevicesCynicalGrapesQuirkyMulticulturalPloyWorld Is Round Author:Zadie Smith
“The last page of [Lincoln in the Bardo] - without giving too much away - involves somebody entering somebody else. Not in a sexual way. But it says one of the simplest things you could ever say, which is that we must try and be inside each other. We must have some kind of feeling for each other and enter into each other's experience.” WayGivingTryingKindFeelingsLastsToo MuchPagesEnteringSimplestGiving Too Much Author:Zadie Smith
“It has historically been a comfort for the bourgeois and that you can read the most extreme books and not change. You can read A Christmas Carol and not change in any way.” WayBookComfortExtremesBourgeoisCarolsChristmas Carol Author:Zadie Smith
“I have a natural tendency to feel well about the world, I suppose, one way or another. But then there is the problem of pain. There are things like [Abraham] Lincoln's beloved little boy dying.” WorldWayFeelsWellsLittlesProblemPainNaturalBoysDyingTendenciesOne WayBelovedAbrahamLittle Boys Author:Zadie Smith
“I guess I've always written more from the opposite perspective, that kind of existentialist perspective which argues that existence precedes essence. And there really isn't anything essential in there - you're the product of your actions, which can always change. And they retrospectively make you one way or another.” WayKindActionExistenceWrittenProductsPerspectiveEssentialsEssenceOppositesArguingOne WayExistentialist Author:Zadie Smith
“150 years ago in [Charles] Dickens's time there was at least a sense of craft. So some of the things people had inside of them, they had the possibility of expressing in the making of things - even in a daily way with their clothes or their food. People made a good deal of both themselves. Now our daily lives are almost all consumption. Craft plays a tiny role.” PeopleWayYearsMadePlayDealsRolesPossibilityClothesYears AgoTinyCraftsDaily LifeConsumptionDickens 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
“Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.” WayWritingVariousMy WayEliminating Author:Zadie Smith
“When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people's, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception.” PeopleWorldWayWritingTryingBelieveMomentsHandsLyingLeftLanguageNationsProcessShapesHistoricalMythMy WayConceptionDogmaMottoSlogansRecogniseEliminationSecond HandWarp 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
“Some people--Samad for example--will tell you not to trust people who overuse the phrase "at the end of the day"--football managers, estate agents, salesmen of all kinds--but Archie's never felt that way about it. Prudent use of said phrase never failed to convince him that his interlocutor was getting to the bottom of things, to the fundamentals.” PeopleWayKindSaidEndsUseFeltExampleFootballFundamentalsBottomAll KindsAgentsManagersPhrasesThe End Of The DayConvinceEstatesSalesmanPrudentEstate Agents Author:Zadie Smith
“But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.” IfsKnowsWayFeelsPersonsSometimesMatterFeelingsWaitingCan DoDealsBrotherDutyLike YouConnectedYour Brother Author:Zadie Smith
“It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies- it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.” PeopleWayHomeBodyHouseAirFeminismHatredShoesNewspapersDraught Author:Zadie Smith
