I’m never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the novel is a local thing. Zadie Smith Read Quote
I don’t keep any copies of my books in the house – they go to my mum’s flat. I don’t like them around. Zadie Smith Read Quote
Any artist who aligns themselves with a politician is making a category error because what politicians do is not on a human scale, it is on a geopolitical scale. Zadie Smith Read Quote
I like books that don’t give you an easy ride. I like the feeling of discomfort. The sense of being implicated. Zadie Smith Read Quote
It seems to me that we often commit ourselves wholly to something while knowing almost nothing concrete about it. Another word for that, I suppose, is ‘faith.’ Zadie Smith Read Quote
You become a different writer when you approach a short story. When things are not always having to represent other things, you find real human beings begin to cautiously appear on your pages. Zadie Smith Read Quote
One thing you can’t intend is how you will be read. I hear it said a lot that my books are about the ‘search for identity’, and this is said admiringly, as if I meant to encourage such a search. Zadie Smith Read Quote
I’m most honest about writing when I’m talking to family or friends, not to newspapers. Zadie Smith Read Quote
It’s difficult to tell the truth about how a book begins. The truth, as far as it can be presented to other people, is either wholly banal or too intimate. Zadie Smith Read Quote
Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you. Zadie Smith Read Quote
