“Oh yes, my generation liked to be in some pain when they read. The har...” — Zadie Smith Quote

“Oh yes, my generation liked to be in some pain when they read. The harder it was, the more good we believed it was doing us.”

“My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That's no length for a short story to be. You either do them short like Carver or you stop trying.”

“I'm always a bit suspicious of writers who have the gift of the gab.”

“The Network Generation are secure in, and proud of, their Scottishness. Unlike my generation that grew up in the '80s, they don't see our sense of identity as under threat.”

“I think there are very few people, in my generation at least, that are that passionate about what they do.”

“My generation were all careerists.”