49 Zadie Smith Quotes to inspire you to be a writer

Zadie Adeline Smith is an English writer who writes novels, essays, and short stories.

She got her instant fame by writing her first novel, White Teeth, written in 2000. The book immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards.

Zadie Smith is the author of many novels including White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time, as well as two collections of essays, Changing My Mind and Feel Free.

Here are some powerful motivational quotes by Zadie Smith, and from her book “On Beauty”, “White Teeth”, “Change My Mind” to inspire you in your life.

Powerful Zadie Smith Quotes

Zadie Smith Quotes to inspire you to be a writer

1. “The past is always tense, the future perfect.” ― Zadie Smith

2. “The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” ― Zadie Smith

3. “Time is how you spend your love.” ― Zadie Smith

4. “Without the balancing context of everyday life, all you have is the news, and news by its nature is generally bad.” ― Zadie Smith

5. “Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on.” ― Zadie Smith

6. “Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” ― Zadie Smith

7. “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

8. “Desperation, weakness, vulnerability – these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.” ― Zadie Smith

9. “Nowadays, I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.” ― Zadie Smith

10. “Don’t confuse honors with achievement.” ― Zadie Smith

11. “The lack of alternatives to an illegal action does not legitimize that action.” ― Zadie Smith

12. “Your mid-thirties is a good time because you know a fair amount, you have some self-control.” ― Zadie Smith

13. “Young people understand the world. They should be listened to on matters of politics and world organization. But they know nothing of their own lives.” ― Zadie Smith

14. “If you love a young writer, maybe the best thing you can do is give them a little bit of space.” ― Zadie Smith

15. “Unless you consider yourself some sort of human brand, which I don’t, you have to deal with the fact that different people are going to like different aspects of your work. It’s not consistent. I am not consistent. But I feel OK with that.” ― Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith Quotes on Writing

Zadie Smith Quotes to inspire you to be a writer

16. “If you’re going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.” ― Zadie Smith

17. “We cannot be all writers all the time. We can only be who we are.” ― Zadie Smith

18. “Writing is my way of expressing – and thereby eliminating – all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.” ― Zadie Smith

19. “Like all readers, I want my limits to be drawn by my own sensibilities, not by my melanin count.” ― Zadie Smith

20. “Don’t romanticize your ‘vocation.’ You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle.’ All that matters is what you leave on the page.” ― Zadie Smith

21. “I have the ambition to write a great book, but that’s really a competition with myself. I’ve noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don’t really want to do anything. I can’t think of anything less worth striving for than fame.” ― Zadie Smith

22. “I’m always a bit suspicious of writers who have the gift of the gab.” ― Zadie Smith

23. “Normally, young writers have all the time in the world and they don’t always use it well.” ― Zadie Smith

24. “We cannot be all writers all the time. We can only be who we are.” ― Zadie Smith

25. “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

Changing My Mind Quotes by Zadie Smith

Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.

26. “Nowadays I know the true reason I read is to feel less alone, to make a connection with a consciousness other than my own.” ― Zadie Smith

27. “Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.” ― Zadie Smith

28. “Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before.” ― Zadie Smith

29. “You need a certain head on your shoulders to edit a novel, and it’s not the head of a writer in the thick of it, nor the head of a professional editor who’s read it in twelve different versions.” ― Zadie Smith

30. “It’s the head of a smart stranger who picks it off a bookshelf and begins to read. You need to get the head of that smart stranger somehow. You need to forget you ever wrote that book.” ― Zadie Smith

On Beauty Quotes by Zadie Smith

The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.

31. “The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” ― Zadie Smith

32. “You don’t have favorites among your children, but you do have allies. ” ― Zadie Smith

33. “I am very selfish, really. I lived for love.” ― Zadie Smith

34. “It’s easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy.” ― Zadie Smith

35. “This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.” ― Zadie Smith

36. “I’m not sure if you’re the person for me anymore.” ― Zadie Smith

37. “This was one of the little ways in which he said sorry. They were meant to add up each day.” ― Zadie Smith

38. “Most of the cruelty in the world is just misplaced energy.” ― Zadie Smith

39. “The fate of the young man in his headphones, who faced a jail cell that very night, did not seem such a world away from his own predicament: an anniversary party full of academics.” ― Zadie Smith

White Teeth Quotes by Zadie Smith

Faith is hard to achieve, easy to lose

40. “Faith is hard to achieve, easy to lose.” ― Zadie Smith

41. “Sacrifice was nine-tenths of parenting.” ― Zadie Smith

42. “Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.” ― Zadie Smith

43. “You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence.” ― Zadie Smith

44. “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

45. When the male organ of a man stands erect, two-thirds of his intellect go away. And one-third of his religion.” ― Zadie Smith

46. “One just has to look at the thing from a perspective that interests you personally.” ― Zadie Smith

47. “Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway.” ― Zadie Smith

48. “You are never stronger, ” thought Samad as approached the doctor, ” than when you land on the other side of despair.” ― Zadie Smith

49. “That is a common mistake. The truth does not depend on what you read.” ― Zadie Smith

I hope you liked the above Zadie Smith Quotes. Don’t forget to mention the best line that you liked most from the above lines in the comment box below.

You may also like the motivational articles mentioned below:

Also, you can join our Instagram page to get daily positive lines or you can visit our Pinterest page to get motivational images.


Photo of author
About The Author
MS
This post is published by MS who started the website Find Motivation. The goal of this website is to motivate people by giving them the right knowledge and information.