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Quote by Zadie Smith

“There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.”

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

“I was thinking about the generation before us, like John Barth and all of those pomo dudes who had that idea of, instead of hiding the structure and making it look organic and natural, we're going to put the structure on the outside. But most of the time, at least for me, all I could attend to [in Swing Time] was that act of structural self-consciousness.”

Thinking Looks Ideas Self Natural Consciousness Generations Structure Hiding Swings Self Consciousness

Author: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. You have to work out what it is you can't do, obscure it, and focus on what works.”

People Writing Important Young Principles Focus Work Out Phrases Obscure Lanes

Author:Zadie Smith

“What interests me in [Lincoln in the Bardo] is a slight perverse balance between the sublime and the grotesque. Like you could have landed only on the sublime. But my argument is that the sublime couldn't exist without this other half.”

Interest Half Like You Balance Argument Sublime Other Half Grotesque

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.”

Book Ends Seems Order Views Talking Risk Example Concepts Point Of View Ghost Aesthetic Compelled Equations Grotesque Profane

Author:Zadie Smith

“It's not in good taste to have talking ghosts in a grown-up novel.”

Talking Novel Taste Ghost Good Taste

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.”

Way Book Comfort Extremes Bourgeois Carols Christmas Carol

Author:Zadie Smith

“Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it.”

Risk Changed Ghost Sublime Grotesque

Author:Zadie Smith

“I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.”

Believe Consciousness Extensions After Death

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.”

World Way Feels Wells Littles Problem Pain Natural Boys Dying Tendencies One Way Beloved Abraham Little Boys

Author:Zadie Smith

“For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.”

Problem Pain Novel

Author:Zadie Smith

Quote by Zadie Smith

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