Oblivious to the event or on the brink of a genuine religious conversion.
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Zadie Smith
Novelist and essayist
United Kingdom · b. 1975
Arts and letters
About
English novelist and essayist, author of White Teeth, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time, and of the essay collections Changing My Mind and Feel Free. She teaches fiction at New York University.
7 answers
Reading quietly, in high grass, among loved ones (who are also quietly reading). Followed by a boozy lunch.
Violent death. Death generally.
Narcissism, solipsism.
I feel almost certain I don't know them. It would be one of these types who dedicate their lives to the welfare of others, whereas the people I tend to know are people making stories out of the dramas of themselves.
Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
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