quote · Legacy record
I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at dinner next to someone who knows just as much about novels as I do but has somehow also found the mental space to adore and be knowledgeable about the opera, have strong opinions about the relative rankings of Renaissance painters, an encyclopedic knowledge of the English civil war, of French wines--I feel an anxiety that nudges beyond the envious into the existential. How did she find the time?
I have known many true connoisseurs, with excellent tastes that range across the humanities and the culinary arts--and they never fail to have a fatal effect on my self-esteem. When I find myself sitting at dinner next to someone who knows just as much about novels as I do but has somehow also found the mental space to adore and be knowledgeable about the opera, have strong opinions about the relative rankings of Renaissance painters, an encyclopedic knowledge of the English civil war, of French wines--I feel an anxiety that nudges beyond the envious into the existential. How did she find the time?
Approximate author period: c. 1975 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Zadie Smith
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
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- Approximate author period: c. 1975 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1975; activity date not established; Wikidata Q140052, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q140052 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 213604; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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