Zadie Smith Quotes

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Don't live in a way that makes you feel dead.

The end is simply the beginning of an even longer story.

Time is how you spend your love.

You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence.

In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

It's gotten to a point where everybody is concerned about their rights and nobody is concerned about their duties.

The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

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.

(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

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.

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.

You are never stronger...than when you land on the other side of despair.

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.

Most of the cruelty in the world is just misplaced energy.

Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.

Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we're also dark people with dark thoughts.

Step back from your Facebook Wall for a moment: Doesn't it, suddenly, look a little ridiculous? Your life in this format?

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer.