SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It is time for another conversation with our friends over at the Wild Card podcast. This time, host Rachel Martin talks with acclaimed writer Zadie Smith about her biggest regret and why strangers make her cry. Here's Rachel.
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RACHEL MARTIN: One, two or three?
ZADIE SMITH: Two.
MARTIN: What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
SMITH: Gosh - regret (laughter).
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: I think that's the one I know very well, yeah. I think people's lives are so profoundly shot through with regret. And you don't - they don't talk about it very often, particularly in America. It's like a failure - right? - to...
MARTIN: Oh, it's like a four-letter word. And when people bring up the idea of regret, you don't...
SMITH: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Admit it because it's made you who you are, etc., etc., etc.
SMITH: Yeah, yeah. I'm always hearing people on television saying, no regrets - sorry, not sorry. I'm like, wow, dude.
MARTIN: Yeah, I don't believe that for one second.
SMITH: I am so sorry.
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SMITH: I am so filled with regret. It must be amazing never to feel sorry.
MARTIN: Right.
SMITH: So yeah, regret is something that I really feel - if only for the simple and selfish fact that you get one life, you know?
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: And I'm so hungry for life that I could live it, like, 10 times. And once is - you know, it's a tough deal.
MARTIN: May I ask - if you're willing to share - a thing that you wish you had done differently or that had gone differently?
SMITH: I - honestly, I just wish I was less selfish. Writing is a very selfish thing to have done with your time, and it takes up all the time. And I wish I had done a bit less of it or thought about what else I could have done with - in that time 'cause it's all I did. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, which is great, but there's a lot of other things in life that you can do apart from that.
MARTIN: Yeah. It's the bummer about time.
SMITH: Yeah.
MARTIN: That is going to bound (laughter).
SMITH: Yeah. But it's cool. Like, once I realized it, like, I - I've taken steps. You know, I do other things now. I'm out in my community. I'm volunteering. I'm like, engaged.
MARTIN: Yeah.
SMITH: And it feels so much better than sitting at a desk just writing every day.
MARTIN: Well, it's also lonely, I imagine, like, the - just what that work is.
SMITH: It is a little bit lonely. Like, during COVID when everybody was freaking out, I took it kind of personally 'cause it's like, wait, so the thing you hate is my life (laughter)?
MARTIN: Is my life, right (laughter).
SMITH: You hate my life. I've been living my life for 30 years. And to you, it's the worst thing imaginable. I'm like, oh...
MARTIN: To be sequestered at home with your thoughts.
SMITH: ...'Cause I literally do that every day. So I did take it a little bit personally, but it was a wake-up call. I was like, this is not normal. People don't enjoy this - this thing that you do every day. You should try doing something else.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
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MARTIN: Three more cards - one, two or three.
SMITH: Three.
MARTIN: OK. What period of your life do you often daydream about?
SMITH: I really had a wonderful time in New York in my early 30s. You know, I had a - it was a wonderful period in my life, and I daydream about that a lot, particularly spring in New York. It's such a joy.
MARTIN: This is when you were teaching at NYU, right?
SMITH: That's not the part (laughter) - that's not the part that I daydream about...
MARTIN: (Laughter) That's not the part that you daydream about.
SMITH: ...To be fair. It was more in the evening activities. But yeah, I had a lot of fun. Like, I just met so many interesting people. I had - it was extraordinary to me to be here. Despite all the kind of dramas of my adolescence, I do think about that period a lot because I - it's my feeling about teenagers that they are the purest of people. I know they're ridiculous a lot of the time, and I was for sure ridiculous. But they're like philosophers. Like, they're experiencing things for the first time. They take them to heart. Both their politics and their existential lives are taken so personally. So to me, that's when my life seemed most real or something. It stays with you with clarity, both the sadnesses of it and the pains of it, but they were so acute. So I think I return to that period a lot. I guess I write about it a lot, too.
MARTIN: Yeah. No, it makes sense. I mean, you're trying to figure yourself out, and everything is just heightened. And you have a lot of new ideas.
SMITH: Everything is heightened. It's so extreme.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
SMITH: And I was never bored then. The world seemed, you know, so much to me and so present. Yeah.
MARTIN: Are you bored now?
SMITH: (Laughter) You know, it's different. I don't - still think I'm not easily bored because I can get a lot out of just - you know, just looking at anything. I get a lot out of just observing the world. So - and like, I'm under stimulated, right? I'm just - if you remember how life felt in, like, 1987, that's where I am at. (Laughter) It's a slower place. And so you're more in - things, you know, blossom. You can get me crying at blossom or just a kid's face in the street or hearing two people argue in the subway or - you know, that's my stimulation, and that's everywhere and continual.
MARTIN: Zadie Smith, the author of many books, including "White Teeth" which is marking its 25th anniversary. Thank you so much for talking with me.
SMITH: Thank you.
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