Quotes from work
On Beauty

On Beauty
Zadie Smith Original title On Beauty (British English, 2005)

On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E.M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, as well as the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry—"On Beauty and Being Just". The Observer described the novel as a "transatlantic comic saga".The novel was shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize on 8 September 2005. Smith won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction and Orange Prize for Fiction in June 2006.


Zadie Smith photo

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

Unspecified edition, p. 167.
On Beauty (2005)
Variant: You don't have favorites among your children but you do have allies.

Zadie Smith photo
Zadie Smith photo
Zadie Smith photo

“A carefully preserved English accent also upped the fear factor.”

Unspecified edition, p. 155.
On Beauty (2005)

Zadie Smith photo

“It was in the shady groves of dictionaries that Jack fell in love.”

Unspecified edition, p. 54.
On Beauty (2005)

Zadie Smith photo

“He traced the genealogy of the feeling”

Unspecified edition, p. 179.
On Beauty (2005)