If you’re looking for the best On Beauty quotes you’ve come to the right place. We compiled a list of 19 quotes that best summarise the message of Zadie Smith in On Beauty. Let these quotes inspire you!
On Beauty Quotes
Right. I look fine. Except I don’t, ‘ said Zora, tugging sadly at her man’s nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust. To that end she had tried banning television in the early years, and never had a lipstick or a woman’s magazine crossed the threshold of the Belsey home to Kiki’s knowledge, but these and other precautionary measures had made no difference. It was in the air, or so it seemed to Kiki, this hatred of women and their bodies– it seeped in with every draught in the house; people brought it home on their shoes, they breathed it in off their newspapers. There was no way to control it.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
The planet is finished with us, at this point –
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel — before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
The future’s another country, man… And I still ain’t got a passport.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
This is what a woman is: unadorned, after children and work and age, and experience-these are the marks of living.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Jerome said, It’s like, a family doesn’t work anymore when everyone in it is more miserable than they would be if they were alone, You know?
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
She was the kind of person who never gave you enough time to miss her.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
They were real people who entertained and argued and existed entirely independently from him, although he had set the thing in motion. They had different thoughts and beliefs. ~ on children growing up.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
– You look fine. – Right. I look fine. Except I don’t, said Zora, tugging sadly at her man’s nightshirt. This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
On BeautyNo, we could not itemize the listof sins they can’t forgive us.The beautiful don’t lack the wound.It is always beginning to snow.Of sins they can’t forgive usspeech is beautifully useless.It is always beginning to snow.The beautiful know this.Speech is beautifully useless.They are the damned.The beautiful know this.They stand around unnatural as statuary.They are the damnedand so their sadness is perfect, delicate as an egg placed in your palm.Hard, it is decorated with their faceand so their sadness is perfect.The beautiful don’t lack the wound.Hard, it is decorated with their face.No, we could not itemize the list. Cape Cod, May 1974
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
American houses…’ she said, peering over her right shoulder and down the street. ‘They always seem to believe that nobody ever loses anything, has lost anything. I find that very sad. Do you know what I mean?
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
A little white woman, . . . [a] tiny little white woman I could fit in my pocket.’ . . . ‘And I don’t know why I’m surprised. You don’t even notice it – you never notice. You think it’s normal. Everywhere we go, I’m alone in this… this sea of white. I barely know any black folk any more, Howie. My whole life is white. I don’t see any black folk unless they be cleaning under my feet in the fucking café in your fucking college. Or pushing a fucking hospital bed through a corridor . . . ‘I gave up my life for you. I don’t even know who I am any more.’ . . . ‘Could you have found anybody less like me if you’d scoured the earth? . . . My leg weighs more than that woman. What have you made me look like in front of everybody in this town? You married a big black bitch and you run off with a fucking leprechaun?
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
She did what girls generally do when they don’t feel the part: she dressed it instead.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have visited her in the night, but, finding it hadn’t, she did what girls generally do when they don’t feel the part: she dressed it instead.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
They caught up with each other’s news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome – after two months of having to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers – appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two lovers, but this too was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. ~ on the comforts of home.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
They were smooth and bright, and their timing was wonderful, and they were young and hilarious. It was really something to see, they thought, and this was why they spoke loudly and gestured, inviting onlookers to admire.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Those are my bougainvillea—I got Victoria to plant them today, but I don;t know if they will survive. But Right now they have the appearance of survival, which is almost the same thing.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
USURY: Everybody’s looking for the job in which you never have to pay anyone their pound of flesh. Self-employed nirvana. A lot of artists like to think of themselves as uncompromising; a lot of management consultants won’t tell you what they do until they’ve sunk five pints. I don’t think anybody should give themselves air just because they don’t have to hand over a pound of flesh every day at 5pm, and I don’t think anyone should beat themselves with broken glass because they do. If you’re an artist, well, good for you. Thank your lucky stars every evening and dance in the garden with the fairies. But don’t fool yourself that you occupy some kind of higher moral ground. You have to work for that. Writing a few lines, painting a pretty picture – that just won’t do it.
— Zadie Smith, On Beauty
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