{"author":"Zadie Smith","author_id":"Zadie+Smith","total_quotes":103,"quotes":[{"text":"I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["myself","great","competition "],"id":1711,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"They were real people who entertained and argued and existed entirely independently from him, although he had set the thing in motion. They had different thoughts and beliefs. ~ on children growing up.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["children"],"id":3616,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"You don’t come to live here [New York City] unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn’t a strong aspect of your personality. 'A reality shaped around your own desires' — there is something sociopathic in that ambition.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["ambition","new-york-city","success"],"id":5618,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"I'd decided to establish a new rule for myself: read for half an hour an evening, no matter what.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["reading"],"id":15356,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"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.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["improvement","love"],"id":15710,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"They caught up with each other's news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome - after two months of having to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers - appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two lovers, but this too was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. ~ on the comforts of home.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["home"],"id":33620,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"Samad! My mouth is like the grave! Whatever is told to me dies with me.'Whatever was told to Zinat invariably lit up the telephone network, rebounded off aerials, radio waves, and satellites along the way, picked up finally by advanced alien civilizations as it bounced through the atmosphere of planets far removed from this one.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["discretion","keeping-secrets","secrets"],"id":34351,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"But why think the more reasons there were to sin, the smaller the sin was?","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["sin"],"id":38391,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["britain","libraries","library"],"id":43964,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"},{"text":"Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.","author":"Zadie Smith","tags":["sadness","satisfaction","truth","unsatisfaction","veils","writing"],"id":50313,"author_id":"Zadie+Smith"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":103,"pages":11,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}