Intimations

by Zadie Smith

War transforms its participants. What was once necessary appears inessential; what was taken for granted, unappreciated and abused now reveals itself to be central to our existence. Strange inversions proliferate. People find themselves applauding a national health service that their own government criminally underfunded and neglected these past ten years. People thank God for “essential” workers they once considered lowly, who not so long ago they despised for wanting fifteen bucks an hour.

Death comes to all—but in America it has long been considered reasonable to offer the best chance of delay to the highest bidder.

too many people will feel moved to pen an essay called, inevitably, “Why I Write” or “Why Write?” under which title you’ll find a lot of convoluted, more or less self-regarding reasons and explanations.

Love is not something to do, but something to be experienced, and something to go through—that must be why it frightens so many of us and why we so often approach it indirectly.

What modest dreamers we have become.

If this child, formed by poverty, sits in a class with my child, who was formed by privilege, my child will suffer—my child will catch their virus.