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But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution, disappearance.
Zadie Smith
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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Fears
Nationalist
Scared
Disappearance
Laugh
Infection
Laughing
Dissolution
Hear
Peanuts
Small
Immigrant
Makes
Immigrants
Miscegenation
Compared
Penetration
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The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
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English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.
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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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Are there other people who, when watching a documentary set in a prison, secretly think, as I have, 'Wish I had all that time to read'?
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Those beliefs about the essential goodness or beauty of the world are fundamentally paper-thin bullshit. There's not an essential belief that isn't a contingent belief. It could all be destroyed in a second, at any second. And I have an issue with that.
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In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.
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I find it impossible to experience either pride or shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I'm not necessarily proud to be female. I am not even proud to be human — I only love to be so.
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When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing.
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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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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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One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are.
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All tastes are expressions of belief.
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Then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging,it seems like some long, dirty lie ... and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?
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I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.
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You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.
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