Deborah Smith Quotes

Quotes about:

• There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.

  Deborah Smith

  Inspirational, Ocean, Insperational

  44 Copy quote

• Instead of fearing what might happen if I failed, I should be excited about what could happen if I succeeded!

  Deborah Smith

  Might, Excited, Should

  7 Copy quote

• Happy people look young. You’re really afraid of getting older, aren’t you? You should only be afraid of getting less happy.

  Deborah Smith

  People, Getting Older, Looks

  Deborah Smith (2006). “The Crossroads Cafe”, p.228, BelleBooks

  7 Copy quote

• I read The Vegetarian and fell in love with it. A year later, I was invited to go and speak at the London Book Fair (which I'd never even heard of before), as they were gearing up for Korea being the market focus country in 2014. I met Max Porter there, Kang's editor at Portobello, sent him my sample, and the rest is history.

  Deborah Smith

  Country, Book, Korea

  Source: thequietus.com

  10 Copy quote

• We are all bodies of water, guarding the mystery of our depths, but some of us have more to guard than others.

  Deborah Smith

  Water, Depth, Body

  Deborah Smith (2002). “Alice At Heart”, p.10, BelleBooks

  8 Copy quote

• Wish it, believe it, and it will be so.

  Deborah Smith

  Believe, Wish

  Deborah Smith (2002). “Alice At Heart”, p.152, BelleBooks

  15 Copy quote

• Flattery is a lie covered in a bed of flowery words.

  Deborah Smith

  Lying, Bed, Flattery

  5 Copy quote

• Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue.

  Deborah Smith

  Stars, Awards, Focus

  Source: thequietus.com

  7 Copy quote

• The hardest memories are the pieces of what might have been.

  Deborah Smith

  Memories, Pieces, Might

  Deborah Smith (2011). “A Place to Call Home”, p.4, Bantam

  4 Copy quote

• Life doesn't take itself seriously for long. Joy leaves an imprint even in the hardest sorrow.

  Deborah Smith

  Long, Joy, Sorrow

  4 Copy quote

• What do you call love, then?" Someone I can't live without.

  Deborah Smith

  I Can

  Deborah Smith (2009). “On Bear Mountain”, p.184, BelleBooks

  4 Copy quote

• Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay is a stylistically daring writer in love with surrealism, credited with being 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality to Bengali literature'. But though the (male) establishment used this label of erotica to dismiss her work, the sex scenes have exactly the same transgressive function as her use of chronology and narrative voice.

  Deborah Smith

  Sex, Narrative Voice, Males

  Source: thequietus.com

  7 Copy quote

• A chorus of tough southern belles whispered, You need a loyal husband around here. Loyal to you, loyal to your family, loyal to your land. I added, Good in bed, smart, and romantic. Politically, socially, and religiously compatible. And he had to want children.

  Deborah Smith

  Children, Husband, Smart

  Deborah Smith (2009). “On Bear Mountain”, p.229, BelleBooks

  4 Copy quote

• The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. PROVERBS 12:22

  Deborah Smith

  Lying, Men, Delight

  5 Copy quote

• A photograph is a souvenir of life!

  Deborah Smith

  Photograph, Souvenirs

  14 Copy quote

• I taught myself the first year course while I was on the dole, then moved to London to do an MA at SOAS, which led straight into a PhD.

  Deborah Smith

  Years, Taught, London

  Source: thequietus.com

  7 Copy quote

• I was in the second year of my PhD when I first had the idea - I'd recently started working as a translator, which meant firstly that I was hearing about amazing-sounding books from other translators, and also that I was getting enough of an insider's view of the publishing industry to be aware of all the implicit biases that made it so difficult for these books to ever get published, especially if they weren't from European languages (harder to discover, editors can't read the original, lack of funding programmes, authors who don't speak English).

  Deborah Smith

  Book, Years, Speak English

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

• Plus, publishing's inherent conservatism, means that what little did get through was weighted towards the commercial end of the scale, which is not the kind of writing that excites me.

  Deborah Smith

  Mean, Writing, Littles

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

• This and the small sample size inevitably leads to stereotypes - sweeping family sagas from India, 'lush' colonial romances from South-East Asia. Mother and daughter reconciling generational differences through preparing a 'traditional' meal together. Geishas. And even if something more exciting does manage to sneak through, it gets the same insultingly clichéd cover slapped on it anyway, so no one will ever know.

  Deborah Smith

  Mother, Daughter, Differences

  Source: thequietus.com

  7 Copy quote

• So the aim for the press was a mixture of things: to publish under-represented writing, which is an intersection of original language, style, content, and often its author's gender. To publish it properly, in a way that makes it clear that this is art, not anthropology. To spotlight the importance of translation in making cultures less dully homogenous.

  Deborah Smith

  Art, Writing, Style

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

• And to improve access to the UK publishing industry - I'm hoping to set up an internship or work experience for someone from a low-income background, as soon as we have the funds. While we don't have the funds, we won't have an intern.

  Deborah Smith

  Low Income, Lows, Backgrounds

  Source: thequietus.com

  5 Copy quote

• I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'.

  Deborah Smith

  Class, Skills, Literature

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

• Not only are unpaid internships exploitative, they're one of the main forces keeping publishing in this country a primary white middle-class industry, which has a direct knock-on effect on what gets published and how.

  Deborah Smith

  Country, Class, White

  Source: thequietus.com

  6 Copy quote

• Simon Collinson, of digital publisher Canelo and über-cool Aussie mag The Lifted Brow, is our digital producer; Sarah Shin, Verso's comms director, is helping us out with press publicity; Soraya Gilanni, who mainly does production and set design for films and commercials, is our art director.

  Deborah Smith

  Art, Design, Directors

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

• But there's also a strong emotional core to counterbalance the experimentalism, with some incredibly moving passages around the narrator's relationship with her (also female) German teacher. It's beautiful.

  Deborah Smith

  Beautiful, Teacher, Strong

  Source: thequietus.com

  4 Copy quote

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