606 Quotes by Zadie Smith

Maybe there will always be men who say the right thing at the right time, who step forward like Thespis at just the right moment of history, and then there will be men like Archie Jones, who are just there to make up the numbers. Or, worse still, who are given their big break only to come in on cue and die a death right there, center stage, for all to see.

But I was so much older then,” sang Archie mischievously, quoting a ten-year-old Dylan track, arching his head round the door, “I’m younger than that now.

But equally you can’t fight for a freedom you’ve forgotten how to identify.

I’m a writer who never writes about sex. It’s so far from my own fictional world.

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.

Archie says -Science- the same way he says -Modern-, as if someone has lent him the words and made him swear not to break them.

She struggled to think of anyone besides perhaps James Baldwin and Jesus who had experiences the profound isolation and loenliness she now knew to be the one and only true reality of this world.

I don’t mean that my mother didn’t love me but she was not a domestic person: her life was in her mind. The fundamental skill of all mothers – the management.

When people use that stream of consciousness, it’s kind of just a term they use for anything that looks slightly different on the page.