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I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
House
Keep
Around
Book
Mum
Like
Flat
Flats
Copies
Books

More quotes by Zadie Smith

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The object of the passion is just an accessory to the passion itself.
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It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.
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Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.
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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.
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Full stories are as rare as honesty.
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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.
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It made me feel that I had to work very hard, but I've always felt I had to work very hard to get my own approval.
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It wasn't like the spare rooms of immigrants - packed to the rafters with all that they have ever possessed, no matter how defective or damaged, mountains of odds and ends - the stand testament to the fact that they have things now, where before they had nothing.
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'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.
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It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don't look more free, they just look more owned.
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I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical.
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When I see my friends engaging in a Twitter war for an afternoon, I think that would destroy me for a month.
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When I was 13, I really used to skip down the street, happy in thinking, Oh, well, someone's suffering pain in order for me to feel this pleasure.
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...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
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A lot of women, when they're young, feel they have very good friends, and find later on that friendship is complicated. It's easy to be friends when everyone's 18. It gets harder the older you get, as you make different life choices, as people say in America. A lot of women's friendships begin to founder.
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When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.
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English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
Zadie Smith
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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 fundamental
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It was a kiss from the past.
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Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]
Zadie Smith