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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| c4e4b4c | She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she'd ever meant by the word. | Zadie Smith | ||
| 06ed26b | fy bnt ljyl ljdyd, hl m zln yrdn 'n ykn mrGwbt bhdhh lshd@? hl m zln yjw`n 'nfshn, wm zln yqr'n lmjlt lnsy'y@ lty tkrh lns bmnthy lwDwH, wm zln yqT`n 'nfshn bskkyn SGyr@ fy 'mkn b`yd@ `n l`ywn lmutaraqib@, wm zln yuzayfn sh`wrhn blwSwl ly l'wrjzm m` rjl ykrhn, wm zln ykdhbn `ly ljmy` `n kl shy'? | zadie | zadie smith | |
| f6346f3 | Archie says -Science- the same way he says -Modern-, as if someone has lent him the words and made him swear not to break them. | Zadie Smith | ||
| 07d24b4 | I remember there was always a girl with a secret, with something furtive and broken in her, and walking through the village with Aimee, entering people's homes, shaking their hands, accepting their food and drink, being hugged by their children, I often thought I saw her again, this girl who lives everywhere and at all times in history, who is sweeping the yard or pouring out tea or carrying somebody else's baby on her hip and looking over .. | Zadie Smith | ||
| 458379c | I don't want your babies, Felix. I can assure you I'm not sitting up here like some tragic fallen woman every night dreaming of having your babies." She began tracing a figure of eight with her fingernail along his stomach. The movement looked idle but the nail pressed in hard. "You realize of course that if it were the other way round there would be a law, there would be an actual law: John versus Jen in the high court. And John would put .. | sexism | Zadie Smith | |
| aee32d3 | Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him. | love | Zadie Smith | |
| e694851 | A little white woman, . . . [a] tiny little white woman I could fit in my pocket.' . . . 'And I don't know why I'm surprised. You don't even notice it - you never notice. You think it's normal. Everywhere we go, I'm alone in this... this sea of white. I barely know any black folk any more, Howie. My whole life is white. I don't see any black folk unless they be cleaning under my feet in the fucking cafe in your fucking college. Or pushing a.. | caucasian on-beauty women zadie-smith | Zadie Smith | |
| 91e699f | The fact is if we followed the history of every little country in this world--in its dramatic as well as its quiet times--we would have no space left in which to live our own lives or to apply ourselves to our necessary tasks, never mind indulge in occasional pleasures, like swimming. Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be? | Zadie Smith | ||
| 1f06128 | The experience of listening to an hour's music you barely know in a dead language you do not understand is a strange falling and rising experience. For minutes at a time you are walking deep into it, you seem to understand. Then, without knowing how or when exactly, you discover you have wandered away, bored or tired from the effort, and now you are nowhere near the music. | Zadie Smith | ||
| 2f1780a | The nineties, ecstatic decade! | Zadie Smith | ||
| 760056c | A neutral place. The chances of finding one these days are slim, maybe even slimmer than Archie's pinball trick. The sheer quantity of shit that must be wiped off the slate if we are to start again as new. Race. Land. Ownership. Faith. Theft. Blood. And more blood. And more. And not only must the place be neutral, but the messenger who takes you to the place, and the messenger who sends the messenger. There are no people or places like that.. | Zadie Smith | ||
| 52a1387 | It was a competition in agony. Like rich women in posh restaurants ordering ever-smaller salads. | Zadie Smith | ||
| a95437d | And in the past, Archie wondered, was it just that fewer people cheated? Were they more honest, and did they leave their front doors open, did they leave their kids with the neighbors, pay social calls, run up tabs with the butcher? The funny thing about getting old in a country is people always want to hear that from you. They want to hear it really was once a green and pleasant land. They need it. | old past | Zadie Smith | |
| 80a8039 | Right now, with that lock of hair falling in his eyes, he's the brother I've missed, the one who once brought me stones from the sea, told me they were rajah's jewels. I want to tell him that I'm afraid I'm going mad by degrees and that nothing seems entirely real to me anymore. I want to tell him about the vision, have him pat me on the head in that irritating way and dismiss it with a perfectly logical doctor's explaination. I want to ask.. | Libba Bray | ||
| 145beb3 | You know, people, just being beautiful isn't enough." Tiara looked confused. "But... it always has been." | Libba Bray | ||
| 9a6d03f | You try standing up to my mom. She's a force of nature. | Libba Bray | ||
| 30621d4 | When it is time for me to visit Brigid, I find her awake in her little room. "That's awl righ', luv. I don' care to forget, if it's all the same," she says, and there are no rowan leaves at her window anymore." | Libba Bray | ||
| d80ee33 | Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of MoMo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. 'Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun-smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows and I'm With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of ChaCha will never bend to your side-of-fries -drive -through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corrupti.. | cinnamon-buns death fries i-m-with-stupid ketchup power-walking | Libba Bray | |
| e209949 | What do I want? Why is that simple question - four little words - so impossible to answer? | Libba Bray | ||
| 01aaed6 | You must be the change you want to see in the world. | Libba Bray | ||
| b544506 | The wind has shifted to the East. A storm isn't far off. I can smell the moisture in the air, a fetid, living thing. Isolated drops fall, licking at my hands, my face, my dress. The quests squawk in surprise, turn their palms up to the sky as if questioning it, and dash for cover. | weather | Libba Bray | |
| 0839dd7 | It's strange how deliberate people are after a death. All the indecision suddenly vanishes into clear, defined moments - changing the linens, choosing a dress or a hymn, the washing up, the muttering of prayers. All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day. | Libba Bray | ||
| d7de6d2 | Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia. | Libba Bray | ||
| 1220c6f | It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves. | Libba Bray | ||
| a532780 | One day, Evie O'Neill, you're gonna fall head over heels for me! | evie-o-neill hope love sam-lloyd | Libba Bray | |
| eafd425 | I'm Sorry,' he says. It's simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways. | religion | Libba Bray | |
| 7e1c1e5 | Ann turns to me. I know she's waiting for some hint of kindness-a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can't muster any of it. "You'll make a fine governess." My words are like a slap. "I know," she answers, a slap of her own." | Libba Bray | ||
| 3a34f39 | I don't know how to accomplish such a look. I find myself with a new fear: that I shall never, ever be this lovely. | Libba Bray | ||
| 1813cfa | Absence is a curious thing. When friends are absent, they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel. | Libba Bray | ||
| 0253f05 | Evie hadn't always felt that way. For a year after James had died, she'd cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O'NEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as ju.. | Libba Bray | ||
| 848a5e2 | I miss Latin. So much fun--all those exciting verbs that don't come until the end of the sentence. It's like a movie trailer for language. | Libba Bray | ||
| 98f9f2a | I have met the devil, and her name is Cecily Temple | Libba Bray | ||
| d273efd | America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals. Sometimes the people dispensed with what was difficult or inconvenient to acknowledge. So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their.. | democracy ghosts history mistakes | Libba Bray | |
| 4371519 | Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening. | Libba Bray | ||
| 603ef40 | You couldn't be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you. | Libba Bray | ||
| 3ac7625 | chasing after words like trying to grab the tails of comets. | writing | Libba Bray | |
| 6a98b9c | I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth." "If I were the last man on earth it'd be because you drove the other poor suckers to early graves." | Libba Bray | ||
| 52ef74f | Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archaeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and I realize that they are fighting laughter over my terrible plight. There's friendship for you. | doyle felicity friendship gemma humor sarcasm | Libba Bray | |
| 6fc04fb | Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are right and just in their actions. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he believed that God had commanded it. To kill your son is unthinkable. A crime. But if you are acting in the belief that your God, your supreme deity whom you must obey, has demanded it of you, is it still a crime?" "Yes," Will said. Dr. Poblocki smiled. "I know you do not believe, Will. Bu.. | Libba Bray | ||
| 7b54897 | Because the pure girls get rescued." Mary Lou felt something she didn't let herself feel often. She was well and truly pissed off. "Why do girls have to be all pure and innocent and good? Why don't guys have to be?" | misogyny patriarchy | Libba Bray | |
| 2268eef | Sometimes when Sam's pretending to be in love with me, my stomach does funny things." "Well, get some milk of magnesia and stop it." | Libba Bray | ||
| b8b36a4 | There is no greater power on this earth than story. People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense--words do. | Libba Bray | ||
| f32c669 | When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear, | Libba Bray | ||
| de7b95f | Sometimes not having any idea where we're going works out better than we could possibly have imagined. | Ann Patchett |