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(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Catholic
Rate
Politician
Promise
Whores
Give
Catholics
Giving
Promises
Politicians
Forgiveness

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I'm most honest about writing when I'm talking to family or friends, not to newspapers.
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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.
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Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.
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Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?
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I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
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Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.
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In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.
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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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'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.
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The really heroic thing about Nick Hornby is that he lives in north London and rarely leaves it... Every English writer needs their corner that is forever England - but only a few brave men choose to make that corner Highbury.
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A lot of [George Saunders] early stories now feel prophetic. Take the recent election [of Donald Trump]. Historians in 100 years might write about it as being the first internet election, in which what happened was actually an expression in the real world of a virtual reality. And you've been writing about that subject for a while.
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I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure.
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It's a funny thing about rap, that when you say 'I' into the microphone, it's like a public confession. It's very strange.
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The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
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I find it impossible to experience either pride or shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I'm not necessarily proud to be female. I am not even proud to be human — I only love to be so.
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Most of the cruelty in the world is just misplaced energy.
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Make sure the lubricant is unscented. Don't join fashionable 'schools of thought.' Read everything.
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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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You're a library of me.
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She loved you in the morning because the day was new.
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