Learning how to be a good reader is what makes you a writer. Zadie Smith More Quotes by Zadie Smith More Quotes From Zadie Smith English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control. Zadie Smith epic writing fall All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it. Zadie Smith book people fiction I'm very attracted to exile literature - particularly Nabokov - exactly because the idea of being away from home for any serious length of time is so inconceivable to me. Zadie Smith literature home ideas (Feedback) People become addicted to it. That’s why journalism is so popular, because you want to hear, every day, what people think of what you just wrote. I think a little patience on that front can be good, too. Zadie Smith want people thinking Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression ? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself. Zadie Smith self clever beautiful These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained. Zadie Smith animal mean country We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention. Zadie Smith ignored worthy attention You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence. Zadie Smith live-life creatures action Full stories are as rare as honesty. Zadie Smith honesty stories Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby. Zadie Smith baptism kissing baby ... don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own... Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt. Zadie Smith eyebrows distance pain Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going. Zadie Smith bridges writing lying Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of ones own resources. Zadie Smith illusion want sometimes In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution. Zadie Smith truth-is ends past Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control. Zadie Smith good-times self knows For example, you have these grotesque, hilarious, profane ghosts in the book [Lincoln in the Bardo]. Even the concept of talking ghosts is, from an aesthetic point of view, grotesque. But you seem compelled by that risk in order to get to the other end of the equation. Zadie Smith views order book When I was young, I was very technical about these things. I didn't like to admit to any intimate relation with what I was writing. Zadie Smith intimate young writing One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are. Zadie Smith smarter novel form Something in me was changed by Lincoln in the Bardo, and the great sublime/grotesque risk of [George Saunders'] ghosts was a part of it. Zadie Smith sublime risk ghost I know to argue against our online lives seems like the argument of the grumpy, old Luddite novelist, but I really always try to make the argument from the perspective of personal pleasure. Zadie Smith novelists perspective trying
