Zadie Smith citations

“… the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.”

“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.”

“You are never stronger… than when you land on the other side of despair.”

“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.”

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

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

“You don't have favorites among your children but you do have allies.”

“Time is how you spend your love.”

“Any woman who counts on her face is a fool.”

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

“Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”

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

“… They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.”

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

“In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.”

“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.”

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

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

“But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, compared to what the immigrant fears - dissolution”

“I don't ask myself what did I live for, said Carlene strongly. That is a man's question. I ask whom did I live for.”

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

“This is what divorce is: Taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love.”

“The future's another country, man… And I still ain't got a passport.”

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

“The object of the passion is just an accessory to the passion itself.”

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

“We cannot love something solely because it has been ignored. It must also be worthy of our attention.”

“I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.”

“It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy”