Quote

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.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Humans
Talk
Consequences
Time
Help
Ethics
Interpretive
People
Moving
Exists
Unfold
Helping
Actions
Realm
Action
Consequence
Multiple
Cannot
Possibility
Realms
Seems
Paper
Nowhere
Human
Move
Ethical

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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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World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?'
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He traced the genealogy of the feeling.
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You don't come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn't a strong aspect of your personality. A reality shaped around your own desires - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.
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A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world.
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... don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own... Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt.
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Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.
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Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]
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The novel leads you places that you never could have gotten to otherwise.
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It's a feeling of happiness that knocks me clean out of adjectives. I think sometimes that the best reason for writing novels is to experience those four and a half hours after you write the final word.
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I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.
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We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.
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It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe.
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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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I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.
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Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.
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Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.
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Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.
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She represents love, beauty, purity, the ideal female and the moon...and she's the mystère of jealousy, vengeance and discord, AND, on the other hand, of love, perpetual help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune.
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