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"And I'm not going to get any thinner or any younger, my ass is going to hit the ground, if it hasn't already--and I want to be with somebody who can still see me in here. I'm still in here. And I don't want to be resented or despised for changing...I'd rather be alone."
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"It is unwise to be part of what reduces you to less than yourself."

"To gain self-respect, you need to put yourself first."

"You'd be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you'd do, when you take self - respect out of the equation."

"Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious."

"Until you raise the bar on yourself people will treat you as a commodity."

"Be excellent in your own terms. Do not look for approval from a single soul on this planet. Respect yourself and in time the whole world will respect you. It is a tragedy of modern life that the light of truth scares the society much more than the darkness of ignorance."

"The admiration you lavish on others phenomenally reflects the respect you give yourself."

"If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you."

"Self respect by definition is a confidence and pride in feeling that you are behaving in an honorable and dignified manner. Respect yourself by respecting others."

"He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce."
Explore more quotes by Zadie Smith

"Now, how do the young prepare to meet the old? The same way the old prepare to meet the young: with a little condescension; with low expectation of the other's rationality; with the knowledge that the other will find what they say hard to understand, that it will go beyond them (not so much over the head as between the legs); and with the feeling that they must arrive with something the other will like, something suitable."

"Four months in the life of a seventeen-year-old is the stuff of swings and roundabouts, ... Never again in your life do you possess the capacity for such total personality overhaul."

"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."

"It's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe."

"Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied."

"By Allah, how _thankful_ he is (_yes, madam, one moment, madam_), how _gladdened_ by the thought that Magid, Magid at least, will, in a matter of four hours, be flying east from this place and its demands, its constant cravings, this place where there exists neither patience nor pity, where the people want what they want _now_, right now (_We've been waiting twenty minutes for the vegetables_), expecting their lovers, their children, their friends, and even their gods to arrive at little cost and in little time, just as table ten expect their tandoori prawns. . . ."

"I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame."

"But singing isn't just about belting it out, is it? It's not just who has the most wobble or the highest note, no, it's about phrasing, and being delicate, and getting just the right feeling from a song, the soul of it, so that something real happens inside you when a man opens his mouth to sing, and don't you want to feel something real rather than just having your poor earholes bashed in?"
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