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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.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Things
Wasn
Spares
Like
Stand
Testament
Fact
Odds
Facts
Possessed
Rafters
Ends
Immigrants
Defective
Ever
Mountains
Packed
Nothing
Mountain
Damaged
Matter
Rooms
Spare

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The nineties, ecstatic decade!
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I know a lot of people who read and think: George [Saunders] is so much fun. There's no denying you're fun to read, but as a writer I think of [George Saunders] as, in fact, not a fun and freewheeling type but really an obsessive control artist.
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I don't ask myself what did I live for, said Carlene strongly. That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for.
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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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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 very selfish, really. I lived for love.
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The future's another country, man... And I still ain't got a passport.
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Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.
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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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The past is always tense, the future perfect.
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- You look fine. - Right. I look fine. Except I don't, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust.
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No fiction, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into language.
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First rule of writing: When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
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13.5 Mrs. Wolfe asks whether Mr. Iqbal expects her Susan to undertake compulsory headstands. 13.6 Mr. Iqbal infers that, considering Susan's academic performance and weight problems, a headstand regime might be desirable.
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He traced the genealogy of the feeling.
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Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.
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Art is the Western myth, with which we both console ourselves and make ourselves.
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People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
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