Quote

... 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

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
Ever
Receive
Eyebrow
Human
Entertainment
Viewing
Humans
Distance
Disguised
Good
Smile
Eyebrows
People
Raised
Sympathetic
Pleasure
Belly
Voyeurism
Interest
Underestimate
Chuckle
Pain
Contempt
Chuckles

More quotes by Zadie Smith

Image
Today, writing seems to me like an incredible luxury, almost a perversity, something which hardly exists in the world anymore, where you get to see the fruits of your actions in a daily way.
Zadie Smith
Image
Time is how you spend your love.
Zadie Smith
Image
It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe.
Zadie Smith
Image
She did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.
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
For me, George Saunders novel [Lincoln in the Bardo] is about a problem of pain.
Zadie Smith
Image
I never bought the idea of individual genius from which the novel spews forth. It's always an act of curation.
Zadie Smith
Image
I like books that don't give you an easy ride. I like the feeling of discomfort. The sense of being implicated.
Zadie Smith
Image
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
Image
In a whisper he began begging for—and, as the sun set, received—the concession people always beg for: a little more time.
Zadie Smith
Image
A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world.
Zadie Smith
Image
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.
Zadie Smith
Image
The choices a writer makes within a tradition - preferring Milton to Moliere, caring for Barth over Barthelme - constitute some of the most personal information we can have about him.
Zadie Smith
Image
You can feel bad... I mean, that's not illegal.
Zadie Smith
Image
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.
Zadie Smith
Image
For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.
Zadie Smith
Image
...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
Zadie Smith
Image
Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.
Zadie Smith
Image
It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy
Zadie Smith
Image
I'm always interested in the way people speak and move in their environment, in a very particular environment. I'm never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the any novel is a local thing always.
Zadie Smith