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3fefef7
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She represents love, beauty, purity, the ideal female and the moon...and she's the mystere of jealousy, vengeance and discord, AND, on the other hand, of love, perpetual help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune.
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Zadie Smith |
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7acce7e
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Perhaps sex isn't of the body at all. Perhaps it is a function of language.
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Zadie Smith |
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d480ee1
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In a whisper he began begging for--and, as the sun set, received--the concession people always beg for: a little more time.
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Zadie Smith |
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2d651f3
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Oh, I know that. You know me, baby, I cannot be broken. Takes a giant to snap me in half.
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Zadie Smith |
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3fdc02a
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This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.
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love
women-s-strength
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Zadie Smith |
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eb83a7a
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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.
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Zadie Smith |
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1243109
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You look fine. - Right. I look fine. Except I don't, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man's nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn't be able to protect them from self-disgust.
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women
mother
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Zadie Smith |
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fffbeba
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Each couple is its own vaudeville act.
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Zadie Smith |
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33fcd21
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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.
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life
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Zadie Smith |
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10f49b9
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Sometimes, one wants to have the illusion that one is making ones own life, out of one's own resources.
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lies
work
life
resources
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Zadie Smith |
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cf6c4b3
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I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.
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Zadie Smith |
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3f5705e
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despite all this, it is still hard to admit that there is no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English. There are still young white men who are angry about that; who will roll out at closing time into the poorly lit streets with a kitchen knife wrapped in a tight fist. But it makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, pea..
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Zadie Smith |
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cca9f72
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People aren't poor because they make bad choices. They make bad choices because they're poor.
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Zadie Smith |
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83c4544
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And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people. Neither as hard as she had thought it might be nor as easy as it appeared.
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Zadie Smith |
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ba36c21
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When the male organ of a man stands erect, two thirds of his intelect go away. And one third of his religion.
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sex
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Zadie Smith |
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a8db11a
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He had her in his heart, but not always in his mind.
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Zadie Smith |
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239268a
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He was having an odd paternal rush, a blood surge that was also blood and was presently hunting through Howard's expansive intelligence to find words that would more effectively express something like
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Zadie Smith |
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2e7ac42
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She had that thing most people don't have - curiosity. She might not have always got the right answers, but she wanted to ask the questions. It's very hard if you are interested in ideas and all that, ideas and the philosophies of the past, it's very hard to find someone around here to really talk to. That's the tragedy of the thing really I mean, when you think about it. Certainly I can't find anyone around here to talk to anymore. And for..
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Zadie Smith |
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fac810e
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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?
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Zadie Smith |
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c26f515
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Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
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Zadie Smith |
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c3226c8
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'this is real. This life. We're really here - this is really happening. Suffering is real. When you hurt people, it's real. When you fuck one of our best friends, that's a real thing and it hurts me.
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Zadie Smith |
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3b145ba
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I am seized by two contradictory feelings: there is so much beauty in the world it is incredible that we are ever miserable for a moment; there is so much shit in the world that it is incredible we are ever happy for a moment.
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Zadie Smith |
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cae9345
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That girl,' tutted Alsana as her front door slammed, 'swallowed an encyclopedia and a gutter at the same time.
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gutter
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Zadie Smith |
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d9df51a
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USURY: Everybody's looking for the job in which you never have to pay anyone their pound of flesh. Self-employed nirvana. A lot of artists like to think of themselves as uncompromising; a lot of management consultants won't tell you what they do until they've sunk five pints. I don't think anybody should give themselves air just because they don't have to hand over a pound of flesh every day at 5pm, and I don't think anyone should beat them..
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writing
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Zadie Smith |
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c813783
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While she was becoming, everyone grew up and became.
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Zadie Smith |
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12be248
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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.
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Zadie Smith |
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465693d
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There was an inevitability about the road towards each other which encouraged meandering along the route.
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Zadie Smith |
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bdda2a1
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Sometimes I wonder if people don't want freedom as much as they want meaning.
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Zadie Smith |
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3c1a643
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We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution---it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmn..
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religion
jihad
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Zadie Smith |
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3beebe7
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He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
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Zadie Smith |
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b2384e8
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We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.
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white-teeth
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Zadie Smith |
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eacedf5
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Clara was a teenage girl like any other; the object of her passion was only an accessory to the passion itself, a passion that through its long suppression was now asserting itself with volcanic necessity.
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Zadie Smith |
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91492cb
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Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.
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Zadie Smith |
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196e747
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It's such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.
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writing
writing-process
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Zadie Smith |
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7da6992
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Under every friendship there is a difficult sentence that must be said, in order that the friendship can be survived.
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words
friendship
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Zadie Smith |
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15d8fe8
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It was a kiss from the past.
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Zadie Smith |
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56f397c
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How much longer on the divan? Why does sex have to mean everything? OK, it can mean something, but why everything? Why do thirty years have to go down the toilet because I wanted to touch somebody else? Am I missing something? Is this what it comes down to? Why does the sex have to mean everything?
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Zadie Smith |
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f6b6be5
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Maybe it doesn't matter that life never blossomed into something larger than itself.
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Zadie Smith |
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78c48bc
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and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)
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Zadie Smith |
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a43055c
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What do we want from our mothers when we are children? Complete submission. Oh, it's very nice and rational and respectable to say that a woman has every right to her life, to her ambitions, to her needs, and so on--it's what I've always demanded myself--but as a child, no, the truth is it's a war of attrition, rationality doesn't come into it, not one bit, all you want from your mother is that she once and for all admit that she is your mo..
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Zadie Smith |
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3b41b77
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This because it is never really very cold in England. It is drizzly, and the wind will blow; hail happens, and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody, but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England's got to give.
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Zadie Smith |
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0769672
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No one is more ingenious than the poor, wherever you find them. When you are poor every stage has to be thought through. Wealth is the opposite. With wealth you get to be thoughtless." "I" --
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Zadie Smith |
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aaa934f
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Involved. At least that was the right word, Alsana reflected, as she liftes her foot off the pedal, and let the wheel spin a few times alone before coming to a squeaky halt. Sometimes, here in England, especially at bus-stops and on the daytime soaps, you heard people say "We're involved with each other," as if this were a most wonderful state to be in, as if one chose it and enjoyed it. Alsana never thought of it that way. Involved happene..
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Zadie Smith |
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a4bdd75
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She was a woman still controlled by the traumas of her girlhood. It made more sense to put her three-year-old self in the dock. As Dr Byford explained, she was really the victim of a vicious, peculiarly female psycological disorder: she felt one thing and did another. She was a stranger to herself. And were they still like that, she wondered - these new girls, this new generation? Did they still feel one thing and do another? Did they still..
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women
generation
objects
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Zadie Smith |