"The thinnest covering of luck was on him like fresh dew. While he slipped in and out of consciousness, the position of the planets, the music of the spheres, the flap of a tiger moth's diaphanous wings in Central Africa, and a whole bunch of other stuff that makes shit happen had decided it was second-chance time for Archie."

Zadie Smith Literature See all quotes by Zadie Smith →

React to this quote

More by Zadie Smith

“But why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.”

“It was in the shady groves of dictionaries that Jack fell in love.”

“He talked and talked, the kind of talking you do to stave off the inevitable physical desire. The kind of talk that only increases it.”

“So we have to be a bit more, I mean, military about it, like plan.”

“Is there anything more likely to take the shine off an affair that when the lover strikes up a convivial relationship with the lovee's mother.”

“This is what divorce is: Taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love.”

Resonant Thoughts

"In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times; for his thoughts will fly to it, of t…"

— Francis Bacon

Literature1909–1992

#time

"On the most usual assumption, the universe is homogeneous on the large scale, i. e. down to regions containing each an appreciable number of nebulae. The homogeneity assumption may then be put in the …"

— Hermann Bondi

Science1919–2005

#time

"Out of the years of the past comes a message from one who towered among us a generation ago—a message voicing in all its fervency the prayer and hope of Humanity: "Young man, young woman, join yoursel…"

— J. Howard Moore

Philosophy1862–1916

#time

"They look at me, and you can see they're looking at a ghost. … Dave said, "She is so much like Kurt." They were all talking amongst themselves, rehashing old stories I'd heard a million times. I w…"

— Frances Bean Cobain

Art1992

#time