Zadie Smith Quotes
It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.
Quotes to Explore
-
People like me were supposed to be into exclusivity, unapproachable. That's what I hate most. I think it's very demode.
-
The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
-
I think people are going to like my new shoes. I like them. I had a lot of success with the one last year, but this year's shoe is going to be a little different, but at the same time it's going to be a little spin-off on last year's shoe.
-
If you love things or ideas or people that contradict each other, you have to be prepared to fight for every square inch of intellectual real estate you occupy.
-
The people I am most interested in are the ones on the edge of losing everything and falling into the last bit of despair. I'm trying to write about how people exist on that edge and how they can come back.
-
I'm always trying to do the impossible to please people. It comes from not being secure in myself and not looking at the things within I have to fix. Sometimes you keep going because you don't want to face the truth.
-
Every story I write adds to me a little, changes me a little, forces me to reexamine an attitude or belief, causes me to research and learn, helps me to understand people and grow.
-
My motivation is my desire to help people. If people want to have children and cannot in the normal way, and I can do something about it, then I will do so.
-
You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions.
-
I don't want to be known as the one who makes movies for older people.
-
Few words in any language carry such a load of meaning as 'honor.' It is an old word, unchanged even in its spelling from classical Latin to modern English. Spoken or written, it does not seem to require much explanation; most people think they know what it means.
-
There came a moment in my life when I realized that I had stepped into another part of my life. I used to walk into a room full of people and think, do they like me? And one day I walk in and I thought, do I like them?
-
Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.
-
I'm 21 years old, and it's kind of uncomfortable for me to talk about, but I'm in the 1 percent as far as my income and tax bracket. But now that I'm here, there's no amount of money you can wave in front of my face that will make me understand depriving people of human rights.
-
Helping people boost themselves out of poverty is the best way to make a lasting positive difference in a person's life.
-
I learned that the hardest party to pull off successfully is Saturday night dinner. This meal is expected to be elaborate: appetizers, first course, dinner, dessert, and coffee. People arrive at 7:30 or 8 p.m. and stay for hours - definitely past my bedtime - and they all go home exhausted.
-
To get important work done, most leaders organize people into teams. They believe that when people collaborate toward a common goal, great things can happen. Yet in reality, the whole is often much less than the sum of the parts.
-
To be honest, accents are one of those things for me, personally, that usually come quite naturally by just listening to the people.
-
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
-
Most teachers still say they love teaching though they wouldn't mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America's educational shortcomings.
-
Shhh.” He put a finger to her lips. “Hear me out. I cannot deny that I would've liked to have made babies with you. A little girl with your hair and eyes would've been the delight of my life. But it is you that I want primarily, not mythical children. I can survive the loss of something I've never had. I cannot survive losing you.
-
When I was 15, I didn't think I was the prettiest at all. But then something happened when I was 20-something - I thought, actually, I really like what I look like. Just because I don't look like everybody else doesn't mean that I can't be just as beautiful.
-
Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us: we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.
-
It's difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate.
