But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep, often immediate connection felt between individuals, likening it to familial bonds, regardless of mutual recognition.
In this quote, Zadie Smith captures the essence of an instant and profound connection that can exist between people, akin to a sibling bond. She emphasizes the importance of outwardly expressing this connection, even if the other person may not consciously acknowledge it. The quote reflects a beautiful aspect of human relationships, where the act of sharing feelings can pave the way for deeper connections, regardless of mutual awareness or acknowledgment.
In practice
You might use this quote in a speech about the importance of friendship during a graduation ceremony.
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.
No one can take the place of a friend, no one.
Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.
If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.
Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.
A long visit to a friend is often a great bore. Never make people twice glad.
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
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