Zadie Smith: Likeness

Zadie Smith is British writer. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Zadie Smith: 162 quotes5 likes

“Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her."
"Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

“She wore her sexuality with an older woman's ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.”

Zadie Smith

“Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“She hopes for nothing except fine weather and a resolution. She wants to end properly, like a good sentence.”

Zadie Smith book The Autograph Man

Source: The Autograph Man

“They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

“Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

“For ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt--something is gained but something is lost.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

“Generally, women can't do this, but men retain the ancient ability to leave a family and a past. They just unhook themselves, like removing a fake beard, and skulk discreetly back into society, changed men. Unrecognizable.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

“He was having an odd paternal rush, a blood surge that was alsoblood and was presently hunting through Howard's expansive intelligence to find words that would more effectively express something like”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I'm not afraid.”

Zadie Smith book NW

Source: NW

“Jerome said, It's like, a family doesn't work anymore when everyone in it is more miserable than they would be if they were alone, You know?”

Zadie Smith On Beauty

Source: On Beauty

“Is there anything more likely to take the shine off an affair that when the lover strikes up a convivial relationship with the lovee's mother.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

White Teeth (2000)

“His death is like the soft down on the back of your hand, passing unnoticed in the firmest of handshakes, though the slightest breeze makes every damn one of the tiny hairs stand on end.”

Zadie Smith book The Autograph Man

The Autograph Man (2002)

“You always wanted to make it clear you weren't like the rest of us. You're still doing it.”

Zadie Smith

Source: Penguin Books 2013, p. 278.

“So we have to be a bit more, I mean, military about it, like plan.”

Zadie Smith

Source: Penguin Books 2013, p. 25.