Zadie Smith

Sometimes I think it's a bit embarrassing how much I keep up with

I don't know, music or new books or I have a kind of voracious appetite for that kind of stuff.

That's the privilege of my life, I guess.

I had the opportunity to continue to be interested.

I would have assumed that everybody's obsessed with time.

I am.

I'll tell you that.

I don't think I've ever met anybody who isn't.

So I always find it strange when people think of it as particular to me because I thought that's just the way people went through life.

But that's another thing about writing.

You find out the things that are actually peculiar to you.

That's always the question you're...

trying to get on the page, like, is this normal?

Do you feel this?

And sometimes the answer is yes.

And sometimes the answer is no.

So maybe my preoccupation is stronger.

And I'm sure it just has a quite boring Freudian origin, which is the very large age gap that my parents had.

So I suppose as a child, the question of time was on my mind in a way it might not be if both your parents are 24, you know.

30 years.