Quote

The lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn't matter what the lady believed.

Zadie Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Lady
Ill
Believed
Didn
Matter

More quotes by Zadie Smith

Image
She loved you in the morning because the day was new.
Zadie Smith
Image
Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts.
Zadie Smith
Image
I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
Zadie Smith
Image
...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
Zadie Smith
Image
You say you want to talk, But you don't . You stonewall me.
Zadie Smith
Image
Where I come from, said Archie, a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her. Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean, said Samad tersely, that it is a good idea.
Zadie Smith
Image
All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it.
Zadie Smith
Image
People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
Zadie Smith
Image
It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies- it seeped in with every draught in the house people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.
Zadie Smith
Image
Sometimes Allah punishes and sometimes men have to do it, and it is a wise man who knows if it's Allah's turn or his own.
Zadie Smith
Image
I do my best work under pressure, so I’ll nick an artery, and my husband isn’t allowed to stanch the bleeding till I’ve banged out a chapter.
Zadie Smith
Image
It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.
Zadie Smith
Image
English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.
Zadie Smith
Image
... 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.
Zadie Smith
Image
I'm not sure if you're the person for me any more.
Zadie Smith
Image
Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.
Zadie Smith
Image
Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.
Zadie Smith
Image
I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.
Zadie Smith
Image
She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence.
Zadie Smith
Image
The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
Zadie Smith