“I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't m...” — Zadie Smith Quote

“I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle.”

“Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.”

“I met Arthur Ashe a few times. I know how important education was to him.”

“Arthur Scargill's leadership of the miners' strike has been a disgrace. The price to be paid for his folly will be immense. He will have destroyed the N.U.M. as an effective fighting force within British trade unionism for the next 20 years. If kamikaze pilots were to form their own union, Arthur would be an ideal choice for leader.”

“There have been so many different versions of the legend and of 'Camelot,' so what I wanted to do was strip it all back, and go back to the beginning and tell the story of Arthur, from the beginning of the relationship between Merlin and Arthur.”