I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.
Interpretation
The quote reflects concerns about one's understanding of what it means to be a person, questioning if it is rooted in outdated or flawed ideas.
In this quote, Zadie Smith expresses anxiety about her perception of personhood, suggesting that her concept may be influenced by nostalgia, which can distort reality. This self-reflective statement acknowledges the complexities of identity and the potential for subjective interpretations of what it means to be human, implying that our views might be shaped by personal biases and historical contexts.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of identity and how it evolves over time.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
You know, you don't expect everyone to be as educated as everyone else or have the same achievements, but you expect at least to be offered at least some of the opportunities, and libraries are the most simple and the most open way to give people access to books.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them.
The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.
I've been present at birth, and death is just as present and in equal balance. And I've been present at death, and birth is just as present, again in equal balance.
Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.
The streets were full of insane & dull people. Most of them lived in nice houses and didn't seem to work, and you wondered how they did it.
A man may be a Bah' in name only. If he is a Bah' in reality, his deeds and actions will be decisive proofs of it. What are the requirements? Love for mankind, sincerity toward all, reflecting the oneness of the world of humanity, philanthropy, becoming enkindled with the fire of the love of God, attainment to the knowledge of God and that which is conducive to human welfare.
To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.
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