Saturday 26 February 2011

on other people's words

"I’m better when I’m writing and I’m more considered and I’m more humane. You’re trying to write about other people. You’re not always thinking about yourself. In life, people are egotistical, vain, they’ve got things they need to do or want to do, or ambitions. When you write, if you’re doing it well, you give up a lot of that. Negative capability, supposedly, is what it’s called. And when it goes well, that’s what it feels like. To let go of all your striving, all your sense of self, and kind of let the world in…It’s very hard to be a really genuinely selfish and terrible person and write generous and interesting prose. It doesn’t happen that often." ~ Zadie Smith.

I love her, by the way---even though a lot of people sometimes don't think she is writing about anything at all. But she is---she is writing about people and their beauty---in all their different forms.


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