Zadie Smith Quotes
One thing you can't intend is how you will be read. I hear it said a lot that my books are about the 'search for identity', and this is said admiringly, as if I meant to encourage such a search.
Quotes to Explore
-
Imperfection is perfection.
-
In 1997, I, along with 200 other young ophthalmologists formed the National Board of Ophthalmology to protest the American Board of Ophthalmology's decision to grandfather in the older ophthalmologists and not require them to recertify.
-
This is the ultimate con game - I'm having fun and people pay me to do it.
-
Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us. First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say?
-
I shouldn't say this, but I always love the sidekicks. I want to do a leading-lady role in a film - absolutely. But I find that a lot of times I get attracted to the sidekick role. They stand out a little more because they're quirkier, they're funnier, they're crazier.
-
Africa is not a fun place, you know. A fun place is somewhere that lifts the spirits, that cossets the senses. I don't think that can be said of the Africa I traveled in.
-
A great painting is a great painting.
-
Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.
-
Many people focus on my power and talk about my power, but I have many more qualities in the ring. I like to surprise everyone.
-
Luck marches with those who give their very best.
-
In my career, there have been roles I haven't taken because someone involved with the project gave me a bad vibe. I don't care how much money is on the table: No job is worth feeling uneasy every day.
-
Beauty at 70 years old isn't the same as beauty at 20 years old, but it is stunning nonetheless.
-
When one sings, one does not speak about the problems of the every day. One speaks about the things which inspire us, which helped us.
-
Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated.
-
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
-
Sport's hard: the margin between winning and losing is tiny.
-
I'm a big baseball fan, and I feel proprietary about the Dodgers. I'm not the owner. I'm not the manager. But I feel passionate about the decisions that they make, and I take it personally when they make decisions I don't like.
-
I have always had eclectic obsessions: astrophysics, music theory, the Mongol empire and its history, and the history of the Silk Road, to name a few.
-
Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.
-
After the Second World War, people in Japan no longer died for their country, and even that expression was no longer used.
-
I got to dress up in funny clothes and run around New Zealand with a bow and arrow for 18 months, how bad could that be?
-
The Sino-Indian War in 1962 has fundamentally shaped and distorted Indian attitudes towards China. It also obscured a great deal of what has happened in China since 1962.
-
The distinctions of fine art bore me to death.
-
One thing you can't intend is how you will be read. I hear it said a lot that my books are about the 'search for identity', and this is said admiringly, as if I meant to encourage such a search.
