Zadie Smith quotes - page 3

It was a kiss from the past. (Zadie Smith)
We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
Zadie Smith
Fate is a quantity very much like TV: an unstoppable narrative, written, produced and directed by somebody else.
Zadie Smith
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
Zadie Smith
Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.
Zadie Smith
Rarely does one see a squirrel tremble.
Zadie Smith
But why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
Zadie Smith
His death is like the soft down on the back of your hand, passing unnoticed in the firmest of handshakes, though the slightest breeze makes every damn one of the tiny hairs stand on end.
Zadie Smith
The more blessed she felt on earth, the more rarely she turned to heaven.
Zadie Smith
.. and the devil won another easy hand in God's poker game.
Zadie Smith
His mind was a small thing with big holes through which passions regularly seeped out. (Zadie Smith)
... dressed all in yellow spreading warmth and the promise of sex.
Zadie Smith
A carefully preserved English accent also upped the fear factor.
Zadie Smith
It was in the shady groves of dictionaries that Jack fell in love.
Zadie Smith
You always wanted to make it clear you weren't like the rest of us. You're still doing it.
Zadie Smith
So we have to be a bit more, I mean, military about it, like plan.
Zadie Smith
Ryan's freckles were a join-the-dot's enthusiast's wet dream.
Zadie Smith
But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution.
Zadie Smith
She did what girls generally do when they don't feel the part: she dressed it instead.
Zadie Smith
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
It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy. (Zadie Smith)
Jerome said, It's like, a family doesn't work anymore when everyone in it is more miserable than they would be if they were alone, You know?
Zadie Smith
He was having an odd paternal rush, a blood surge that was alsoblood and was presently hunting through Howard's expansive intelligence to find words that would more effectively express something like.
Zadie Smith
Not everyone wants this conventional little life you're rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it's time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I'm not afraid.
Zadie Smith
In my situation, every time I write a sentence, I'm thinking not only of the people I ended up in college with but my siblings, my family, my school friends, the people from my neighborhood. I've come to realize that this is an advantage, really: it keeps you on your toes.
Zadie Smith