Quote

It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don't look more free, they just look more owned.

Zadie Smith

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Zadie Smith
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: October 27
Essayist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Zadie Adeline Smith
Sense
Disgusting
Look
Liberal
Self
Careful
Networked
Looks
Consider
Disgust
Turn
Bourgeois
Turns
Selves
Free
Owned
Wish
Reminds

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English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
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Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.
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Some people--Samad for example--will tell you not to trust people who overuse the phrase at the end of the day--football managers, estate agents, salesmen of all kinds--but Archie's never felt that way about it. Prudent use of said phrase never failed to convince him that his interlocutor was getting to the bottom of things, to the fundamental
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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.
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...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
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Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.
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Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.
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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.
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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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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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Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.
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The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimise that action.
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The nineties, ecstatic decade!
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I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
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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.
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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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Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?
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The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
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Step back from your Facebook Wall for a moment: Doesn't it, suddenly, look a little ridiculous? Your life in this format?
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Try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
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