Quotes from Zadie Smith

I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.

Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]

'A reality shaped around your own desires' - there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

When I think of the books I love, there's always a little laughter in the dark.

Anyone over the age of thirty catching a bus can consider himself a failure.

People don't settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.

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

Cambridge was a joy. Tediously. People reading books in a posh place. It was my fantasy. I loved it. I miss it still.

An essential part of power is the freedom not to think too deeply

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

But surely to tell these tall tales and others like them would be to spread the myth, the wicked lie, that the past is always tense and the future, perfect.