Limited Life

Times Square subway station

"I think New York is good for me in that my life is very limited. I have to take my kids to school, I do a very small amount of things, I don’t have adventures. If I was doing that in some rural village in England, I would feel that my subject is very small, whereas in New York, even though I walk three blocks, there’s an amazing amount of people in those three blocks, and an amazing amount of things to see. Just getting on the subway is useful to me. I’m lucky, the world comes to me. I don’t have to do much."
Zadie Smith, The Tulane Hullabaloo

Pursuit of Happiness

"The pursuit of happiness has always seemed to me a somewhat heavy American burden, but in Manhattan it is conceived as a peculiar form of duty."
Zadie Smith, Feel Free

High

"I despair when Shakespeare and Co. closes in favor of another Foot Locker. There's no way to be in good faith on this island anymore. You have to crush so many things with your mind vise just to get through the day. Which seems to me another aspect of the ad outside of my window: willful intoxication. Or to put it more snappily: 'You don’t have to be high to live here, but it helps.'"
Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books

Limitless

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

"You are pure potential in Manhattan, limitless, you are making yourself every day."
Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books

Alpha

IBM Building

"Manhattan is for the hard-bodied, the hard-minded, the multitasker, the alpha mamas and papas. A perfect place for self-empowerment—as long as you're pretty empowered to begin with."
Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books

Self-Actualization

Coney Island

"The greatest thing about Manhattan is the worst thing about Manhattan: self-actualization. Here you will be free to stretch yourself to your limit, to find the beach that is yours alone. But sooner or later you will be sitting on that beach wondering what comes next."
Zadie Smith, The New York Review of Books