“If you asked me if I wanted more joyful experiences in my life, I woul...” — Zadie Smith Quote

“If you asked me if I wanted more joyful experiences in my life, I wouldn't be at all sure I did, exactly because it proves such a difficult emotion to manage.”

“There is no bigger crime, in the English comic novel, than thinking you are right.”

“All my books are made up of other books. They're all deeply structured on other fiction, because I was a student in fiction and I didn't have much actual living to draw on. I suspect a lot of other people's novels are like that, too, though they might be slower to talk about it.”

“I have had experiences where the director has asked me to meet for a drink or to come party with him or just to 'hang out.' I have lost some roles because I refused to go to Madh Island to hang out.”

“Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.”

“I find that my entire life has come to me, and things happened without me planning them. You know, I never asked to photograph Princess Diana, and that made me more famous than I wanted. I never asked to photograph Madonna, and that pushed me to another level. There are things that just take you into the limelight.”