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But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Would
Lying
Like
Future
Tense
Perfect
Tall
Black
Surely
Tell
Wicked
Others
Tales
Past
Myth
Always
Spread

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The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
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The future's another country, man... And I still ain't got a passport.
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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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I never bought the idea of individual genius from which the novel spews forth. It's always an act of curation.
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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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The end is simply the beginning of an even longer story.
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It was a kiss from the past.
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I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle.
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Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.
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Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression ? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.
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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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Asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is forever listing the attributes of heavenly armies. Because boasting is a formal condition of the epic form. And those taught that they deserve nothing rightly enjoy it when they succeed in terms the culture understands.
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For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.
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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.
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Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.
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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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