white teeth
forgive the hyper-extant patriocentrism, but this is the greatest quote ever. I found it several years ago, and now I’ve found it again.
‘our children will be born of our actions. our accidents will become their destinies. it is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. when the fat lady is singing. when the walls are falling in, and the sky is dark, and the ground is rumbling. in that moment our actions will define us. and it makes no difference whether you are being watched by Allah, Jesus, Buddah, or whether you are not. on cold days a man can see his breath, on a hot day he can’t. on both occasions, the man breathes.’
-samad iqbal, white teeth, zadie smith
and then, another, found more recently…
“oh he loves her, just as the English loved India & Africa & Ireland; it is the love that is the problem, people treat their lovers badly. but maybe it is just the scenery that is wrong. maybe nothing that happens on stolen ground can expect a happy ending.”
-white teeth, zadie smith
later, a post on why zadie smith is my generation’s best novelist.
