Home / Quotes / Quote by Zadie Smith

Quote by 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.”

Quote by Zadie Smith

Author

Zadie Smith is a British novelist known for her distinctive literary style and profound social insights. Her works cover a range of themes including race, class, gender, and identity, and have been widely appreciated by readers. more

You May Also Like

“It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.”

People Book Difficult Intimate Telling The Truth

Author:Zadie Smith

“Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression ? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.”

Ifs Want Self Beautiful Novel Expression Rings Clever Bells Yards Express Yourself Self Expression Something Beautiful Funny Clever

Author:Zadie Smith

“The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.”

Should Real Artist Class Strange Roots Appearance Rap Authenticity Rapper Being Real Mainstream Working Class Ghetto

Author:Zadie Smith

“When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.”

Humans Character Individual Language Human Beings Data Sensibility Shrinks Website Like Facebook

Author:Zadie Smith

“When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.”

Writing Wanted Religious Scripts Editors Cult Such Is Life Religious Cults

Author:Zadie Smith

“You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your pages.”

Humans Different Real Stories Human Beings Approach Pages Insightful Short Story Real Human

Book:Martha and Hanwell

Source: Martha and Hanwell

“Artists themselves are not confined, but their output is.”

Art Artist Architecture Confined Output

Book:Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

Source: Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

“Abstraction is everybody's zero but nobody's nought.”

Artist Zero Abstraction

Book:Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

Source: Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

“The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness.”

Artist Eternal Ideals Nostalgia Bliss Parks Heavenly Surround Calmness National Parks Carrier Scenic

Book:Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

Source: Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

“A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.”

World Art Loses Objects Surface Works Of Art Gallery Outside World

Book:Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings

Source: Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings