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Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Life
Outside
Inside
Moment
Moments
Happens
Two
Different
Histories
Every
Twice

More quotes by Zadie Smith

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World makers, social network makers, ask one question first: 'How can I do it?'
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All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.
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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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They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
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The lady was old, the lady was ill. It didn't matter what the lady believed.
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My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That's no length for a short story to be. You either do them short like Carver or you stop trying.
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Revelation is where all crazy people end up. It's the last stop on the nutso express.
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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.
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The world is now multicultural the same way the world is round. It's not a selling point, it's not a 'quirky' feature, it's not a cynical marketing ploy, it's not an artistic statement, it's not even a plot device. It's a fact, like seedless grapes.
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The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.
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Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
Zadie Smith
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English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.
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She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence.
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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 seems to me now that the deep structures [in writing] are often subconscious and set in childhood.
Zadie Smith
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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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Time is how you spend your love.
Zadie Smith
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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.
Zadie Smith
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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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To a novelist, fluidity is the ultimate good omen suddenly difficult problems are simply solved, intractable structural knots loosen themselves, and you come upon the key without even recognizing that this is what you hold.
Zadie Smith