Aliya Kadyrova

“If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.”
― Jean Cocteau

“What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.”
― Jean Cocteau

“It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.”
― Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays

“Other people’s words are so important. And then without warning they stop being important, along with all those words of yours that their words prompted you to write. Much of the excitement of a new novel lies in the repudiation of the one written before. Other people’s words are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going.”
― Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays