Zadie Smith Quotes:
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.
Zadie Smith
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic. Writing is the exact opposite of therapy.
ZADIE SMITH
As far as I’m concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.
ZADIE SMITH
My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That’s no length for a short story to be. You either do them short like Carver or you stop trying.
ZADIE SMITH
I just can’t get used to the idea of being somebody unreal in people’s minds. I can’t live my life like that. And it’s just anathema to being a writer. It’s not healthy.
ZADIE SMITH
My life is black and white and mixed. My mother’s a Rastafarian, my dad was a short white guy – it’s not an affectation. It’s also the lives of millions of people throughout the world.
ZADIE SMITH
Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.
ZADIE SMITH
Young people understand the world. They should be listened to on matters of politics and world organization. But they know nothing of their own lives.
ZADIE SMITH
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
ZADIE SMITH