Zadie Smith Quotes

Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?

Zadie Smith

• Attention
• Drawing
• Circles

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Quotes to Explore

• My parents came to see me in a play at Eton when I was 16. And then, when I said I wanted to try for drama school, they knew there was enough passion there for them to be brave and back me.

  

  Damian Lewis
  • School
  • Parents
  • Passion

• Listen: our culture is saturated with irony whether we know it or not.

  

  Barbara Kruger
  • Culture
  • Know
  • Irony

• I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

  

  Samuel Goldwyn
  • Think
  • Funny
  • Should

• As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it's very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.

  

  Omari Hardwick
  • Important
  • American
  • Positive

• My worst expectations never happened.

  

  Barbara Bush
  • Never
  • Worst
  • Expectations

• All the women in my family are very dramatic by themselves. They make the biggest things out of nothing. I think that's where I learned a lot about being emotional.

  

  Jacob Batalon
  • Women
  • Family
  • Think

• The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there's no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social.

  

  Patrick deWitt
  • Way
  • Like
  • Idea

• To make the child in your own image is a capital crime, for your image is not worth repeating. The child knows this and you know it. Consequently you hate each other.

  

  Karl Shapiro
  • Hate
  • Know
  • Child

• I suppose I have played a lot of put-upon women, but it's never bothered me. They've never been weak – they've always got steel in them.

  

  Olivia Colman
  • Women
  • Never
  • Played

• Never thought acting was something you could make a living at. It wasn't until I was in college, and got a lead in a play, that I began to realize I might just be able to blunder into this profession.

  

  Ed Asner
  • College
  • Thought
  • Acting

• Accept it or not, every star, actor, and director wants to work on larger-than-life films.

  

  Ram Charan
  • Life
  • Work
  • Star

• Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

  

  Lao Tzu
  • Long
  • Live
  • Why

• I think Ali was a fan of mine, even though he never said it. A lot of fighters thought I was pretty good. Nobody every really spoke different on that. But a lot of fighters thought I was good so.

  

  Larry Holmes
  • Good
  • Different
  • Think

• I love drag queens... they perform me better than I ever could myself.

  

  Taylor Dane
  • Me
  • Myself
  • Better

• I think that when something happens when you're growing up, like a death or divorce, it does open the world slightly because things aren't as straightforward.

  

  Felicity Jones
  • Up
  • World
  • Death

• My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was going to go on being an illustrator, I had to start writing the stories, too.

  

  Natalie Babbitt
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Husband

• If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a machine that has consciousness. And if that happens, that is a road to planetary disaster because everything we've thought about ourselves, since the Bronze Age, the Bible, all of that will be gone.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Age
  • Brain
  • Road

• I like to read in the bathtub. Ideally, that bathtub would be located on a small Greek island.

  

  Adam Mansbach
  • Small
  • Like
  • Greek

• I love getting people's opinion of what I'm doing.

  

  Patricia Riggen
  • People
  • Opinion
  • Doing

• I think future generations will say the late 20th century and the early 21st century was a time of great convulsions and upheavals.

  

  N. T. Wright
  • Time
  • Great
  • Future

• 'The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.'

  

  Brandon Sanderson
  • Purpose

• I'm calculating, self-sufficient, reserved, and I enjoy being alone

  

  Melissa Sue Anderson
  • Enjoy
  • Sufficient
  • Reserved

• I think as you get older and things don't work as much as they used to, you've got to have a tendency to do what's right for your body.

  

  Andre Reed
  • Body
  • Right
  • Tendency

• Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?

  

  Zadie Smith
  • Attention
  • Drawing
  • Circles