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Quote by Zadie Smith

“Time is compressing for the mother, she has a short distance left to go. She means to squeeze the past into a thing small enough to take with her. It's the daughter's job to listen. She's no good at it.”

Quote by Zadie Smith

Book:NW

Work

NW

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Author

Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith

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

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“I cling to the Milan women's understanding of these literary heroines as mothers. I wish I had learned to read them in this way years ago--with the same complicated, ambivalent, essential freedom that a daughter feels when she looks at her mother, understanding her as a figure that she simultaneously resists and depends on; a figure that she uses, cruelly and lovingly and gratefully, as the base from which to become something more.”