Zadie Smith Quotes
I read Carver. Julio Cortazar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me.
Quotes to Explore
-
To me, it's impolite to go out shopping with no money.
-
I get motivated by the fact people are following me, that they want a photo or say 'vamos' or 'Canelo.'
-
For me, opposition is just another opposition.
-
It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?
-
I have a sewing machine that I adore, and I spend a lot of time sitting in front of it when I'm not working. And any excuse to paint or draw or do something artistic with my hands really gets me going. Definitely aspiring.
-
I don't like getting out when I could be painting. And when I'm painting, I don't want anybody else around.
-
I've gone very far, far away, but my character keeps me close to home.
-
Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
-
My first trip to Mexico was with my dad because of his Spanish records. That was back in 1958. I found a picture of me when I was eight dressed as a little senorita.
-
I want to work with producers who are unique and have a different sound.
-
One minute, it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle; the next – no one wanted me.
-
Cartooning at its best is a fine art. I'm a cartoonist who works in the medium of animation, which also allows me to paint my cartoons.
-
I don't do a film unless it has a sword in it. And if it doesn't have a sword in it, I insist that they have one in the same room to keep me comfortable.
-
Most artists like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, as independent characters.
-
It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.
-
You know, I have found out in the course of a long public life that the things I did not say never hurt me.
-
A lot of guys go, 'Hey, Yog, say a Yogi-ism.' I tell 'em, 'I don't know any.' They want me to make one up. I don't make 'em up. I don't even know when I say it. They're the truth. And it is the truth. I don't know.
-
I told my parents that I will marry any girl they choose for me. They also told me that they are open to considering any girl I choose. We were very open about it throughout.
-
You can ask anyone who knows me, I've never said a racist or prejudiced thing in my life.
-
On 'Oz' one day, I got a chunk of a camera embedded in my head, and I was passed out on the floor geysering blood while the set medic stood over me, freaking out. No help whatsoever. I ended up going to the ER and getting nine stitches in my head – real Frankenstein stitches.
-
As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.
-
Coming in and out of Hollywood for pilot season, I may have to thicken my accent or hear that, physically, I'm not Latino. I not only am, but there's another 50,000 people who look exactly like me.
-
Billions of taxpayers' money has been wasted in bad deals. The London Underground modernisation, personally negotiated by one of Gordon Brown's team, was a disaster, as the National Audit Office has confirmed.
-
I read Carver. Julio Cortazar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me.
