606 Quotes by Zadie Smith

He had liked to listen to the exotic (to a Belsey) chatter of business and money and practical politics; to hear that Equality was a myth, and Multiculturalism was a fatuous dream; he thrilled at the suggestion that Art was a gift from God, blessing only a handful of masters, and most Literature merely a veil for poorly reasoned left-wing ideologies.

Early on, for better or worse, I chose whose child I wanted to be: the child of the novel. Almost everything else was subjugated to this ruling passion, reading stories. As a consequence, I can barely add a column of double digits, I have not the slightest idea of how a plane flies, I can't draw any better than a five-year-old.

Ludzie nie zaklepują sobie innych ludzi. Podejmują świadomą decyzję, że będą z nimi. To wymaga wiary. Rysujesz koło na piasku i zgadzasz się w nim stać, i wierzyć w nie.

Poor Zora – she lived through footnotes.

Faith involves an acceptance of absurdity.

But why think the more reasons there were to sin, the smaller the sin was?

['L]ook, of course I know you and your family have "beliefs",' began Howard uneasily, as if 'beliefs' were a kind of condition, like oral herpes.

A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.

Libraries are not failing "because they are libraries." Neglected libraries get neglected, and this cycle, in time, provides the excuse to close them. Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.