White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Autor: Tatiana Machado | Publicado: 2016-04-03T09:30:00-07:00

Zadie is amazing. This was my first, and I want more...

Quotes:

"This is what divorce is: taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love."

"But this was just a symptom of a far deeper malaise. Magid really wanted to be in some other family. He wanted to own cats and not cockroaches, he wanted his mother to make the music of cello, not the sound of the sewing machine; he wanted to have trellis of flowers growing up one side of the house instead of the ever-growing pile of other people's rubbish; he wanted a piano in the hallway in place of the broken door off cousin Kurshed's car; he wanted to go on biking holidays to France, not day-trips to Blackpool to visit aunties; he wanted the floor of his room to be shiny wood, not the orange-and-green swirled carpet left over from the restaurant; he wanted his father to be a doctor, not a one-handed waiter; and this month Magid had converted all these desires into a wish to join in with the Harvest Festival like Mark Smith would."

"Oh, there was a certain pleasure. And don't ever underestimate people, don't ever underestimate the pleasure they receive from viewing pain that is not their own, from delivering bad news, watching bombs fall on television, from listening to stifled sobs from the other end of a telephone line. Pain by itself is just Pain. But Pain + Distance can = entertainment, voyeurism, human interest, cinéma vérité, a good belly chuckle, a sympathetic smile, a raised eyebrow, disguised contempt."

"Straight hair. Straight hair long black sleek flickable tossable shakable touchable finger-through-able wind-blowable hair. With bangs."

"Life hurts," said Andrew scornfully, "beauty hurts".

"Where Irie saw culture, refinement, class, intelect, Millat saw money, lazy money, money that was just hanging around this family."

"I told you it was possible to turn a wishy-washy arts student into a science student in no time at all."

"The more progress Irie made - the less interest Joyce showed in her. Yet the more Millat veered off the rails - the more Joyce adored him."

"She wanted to merge with the Chalfens, to be of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family."

"Now, it wasn't that Joyce was a homophobe. She liked gay men. And they liked her."

"When an Englishman wants to be generous, the first thing you ask is why, because there's always a reason."

"Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different stories."

"What makes us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way?"

"What a peaceful existence. What a joy their lives must be. They open a door and all they've got behind it is a bathroom or a living room. Just neutral spaces. And not the endless maze of present rooms and past rooms and the things said in the years ago and everybody's old historical shit all over the place. They're not constantly making the same old mistakes. They're not always hearing the same old shit. They don't do public performances of angst on public transport. Really, these people exist. I'm telling you. The biggest traumas of their lives are things like recarpeting. Bill-paying. Gate-fixing. They don't mind what their kids do in life as long as they're reasonably, you know, healthy. Happy. And every single fucking day is not this huge battle between who they are and who they should be, what they were and what they will be. Go on, ask them. And they'll tell you."

"The past is always tense, and the future perfect."