606 Quotes by Zadie Smith

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it.

Asking why rappers always talk about their stuff is like asking why Milton is forever listing the attributes of heavenly armies. Because boasting is a formal condition of the epic form. And those taught that they deserve nothing rightly enjoy it when they succeed in terms the culture understands.

The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.

Can't a rapper insist, like other artists, on a fictional reality, in which he is somehow still on the corner, despite occupying the penthouse suite?

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply

I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.

It might be useful to distinguish between pleasure and joy. But maybe everybody does this very easily, all the time, and only I am confused.

I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.

I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical.