A Quote by Zadie Smith

I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.

Zadie Smith

Quote Topics

Against Battle Books Caricature Expose Fiction Heroic Like Like Me Me People Simplification Unlike

Quote Author

Zadie Smith
British - Novelist
Born: October 25, 1975

When I wrote War Against the Mafia as a Vietnam statement, I didn't expect much to come of it-but quite a bit came and it captured me. I continued the books to feed the obvious hunger that was there for heroic fiction.

Don Pendleton

I literally feel like books saved my life. I found these people. Me reading Camus and Kafka, all of the tortured teenager stuff of someone who's falling in love with books. These people, these writers had the questions. They may not have had the answers, but they're not afraid to look at the questions head on. It was just life-changing for me. Yeah, books, honestly, I can't even tell you. I feel saved by books; I feel like they let me be who I was and find the world I wanted to be in.

Nathan Englander

I read books when I was a kid, lots of books. Books always seemed like magic to me. They took you to the most amazing places. When I got older, I realized that I couldn't find books that took me to all of the places I wanted to go. To go to those places, I had to write some books myself.

Pat Murphy

I have learned that my assignment is to write books for people who do not like to read books. I really try to connect with people who are not given to spending a lot of time with an open book. Pay day to me is when somebody comes up to me and says, "I never read books but I read yours." I have a heart for that person.

Max Lucado

Books are attracted to me. They make a beeline for me, and stick to me. I have been so fond of them that at last they have begun to reciprocate. In my hands books burst like ripe fruit. Like magic flowers they unfold their petals to show me the vital thought, the suggestive word, the confirming quotation, the decisive illustration.

Sergei Eisenstein

Non-fiction books have helped me enormously with lots of my books.

Gillian Cross

Books opened up a whole new world to me. Through them I discovered new ideas, traveled to new places, and met new people. Books helped me learn to understand other people and they taught me a lot about myself. ... Some books you never forget. Some characters become your friends for life.

Judy Blume

I could not write my books without the library's help. Even with the ease of Internet research, I find books to be indispensable when I am writing. ... Books make me laugh, cry, and think. They give me insight into history, and into the lives of people in other cultures. They help me make important decisions, and they provide endless entertainment. Hooray for libraries!

Peg Kehret

Without books we're a very uneducated society. Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary.

Tom Robinson

Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books have changed my life.

Po Bronson

People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really love them. It gives me motivation in those times when I'm not feeling very motivated.

Veronica Roth

Real life is physical. Give me books instead. Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book. . . . an intertextual being: a book cyborg, or, considering that books aren't cybernetic, perhaps a bibliorg.

Scarlett Thomas

I must say, some are not very beautifully made. They’re coffee-table books for people who drink alcohol. I have nothing against coffee-table books as long as they are well done. They must not look like gravestones on a table. Sometimes they are too big, they come in boxes and things like this. No, a book has to be easy to open and you don’t have to be a bodybuilder to lift it. I like books I can read in bed. Those big tombstones would kill me.

Karl Lagerfeld

If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.

Jhumpa Lahiri

What is missed when people talk about books is the moment of grace when the reader creates the book, lends it the authority of their life and soul. The books I love are me, have become me.