Zadie Smith
"Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you."
— Zadie Smith
for Creatives | writing, protect the art, the creative life, value the art, Zadie Smith
"Try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would."
— Zadie Smith
for Creatives | reading, writing, rewriting, feedback/criticism/rejection, Zadie Smith
"Don't romanticize 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."
— Zadie Smith
"Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won't make your writing any better than it is."
— Zadie Smith (art by Dan Meyer)
for Creatives | artist integrity, writing, solitude of creating, Zadie Smith, Dan Meyer
"I think this is where the real attraction [of being a writer] lies. Not in the freedom to express oneself, but in the freedom not to. To me, writing is precisely my escape from the partial, subjective reality in which I live."
— Zadie Smith