In my situation, every time I write a sentence, I'm thinking not only of the people I ended up in college with but my siblings, my family, my school friends, the people from my neighborhood. I've come to realize that this is an advantage, really: it keeps you on your toes.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the importance of considering one's background and community while writing.
Zadie Smith reflects on her writing process, emphasizing how the diverse influences of her family, friends, and neighborhood shape her thoughts and creativity. This consideration of various perspectives not only enriches her writing but also serves as a reminder of the connectedness we all share, which can be an advantage in maintaining authenticity and relevance in one's work.
In practice
During a workshop on creative writing, this quote can inspire participants to draw from their own backgrounds.
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.
Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself.
Simply put, girls and women are the keys that will unlock sustainable development. They are also at the center of the healthier and more resilient societies we desire.
When you educate a girl, you kick-start a cycle of success. It makes economic sense. It makes social sense. It makes moral sense. But, it seems, it's not common sense yet.
Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the TV set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed.
Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.
Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national calamity.
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