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The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Writing
Life
Sleepwalk
Entire
Write
Reason
Might

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Time is how you spend your love.
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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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(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)
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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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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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The ideal reader cannot sleep when holding the writer he was meant to be with.
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Any woman who counts on her face is a fool.
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And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy. But in another way, when I'm writing, what it's about for me is being good on the page. None of that noise could change the way I feel about my writing. Which is not always particularly positive.
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I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
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Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.
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It was a kiss from the past.
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He had her in his heart, but not always in his mind.
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The object of the passion is just an accessory to the passion itself.
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I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.
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When people use that stream of consciousness, it's kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.
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Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]
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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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As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.
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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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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.
Zadie Smith