Zadie Smith Quotes

By the time the children go to bed, I am as drained as any mother who has spent her day working, car pooling, building Lego castles and shopping for the precisely correct soccer cleat.

I have a six-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, so I write when they are at school and pre-school, or when I have a babysitter.

With two kids it's hard to find down time to write so I often write during their nap time.

Time becomes more precious when you have children.

I spend as much time with my kids as any mom who stays home. I only work during the hours they're at school, but there is always the sense of trying to catch up with all their stuff and not only organize my work life but also their school lives.

I do consider how I spend my time off carefully because I've got two kids.

All of these things we do without children, and suddenly we don't do them anymore, and it comes home to us in a real way, that it's very different to have the responsibility of a child.

I am a mother, so I'm used to balancing things.

To have kids and not be there every night is tough.

I run about four to five miles, three days a week. I have four young children, so pretty much the only time I can get away is real early in the morning.

With two little boys in diapers, I had to keep it simple if I were going to have a life at all.

With writing, I need a lot of time to sit around and do nothing. But now that I have kids, I just don't have that luxury. I have a babysitter for three hours a day, which is how long I have to write.

I wanted to stay on TV because I've got kids who are school-aged, so I get to see them most days as opposed to going away for movies months and months at a time.

I've got three kids, so there's not much downtime.

I'm never late, and I love that. Because when you've got three kids and a life to be living, and somebody's half an hour late to set, you start to get a little bit like, 'Come on. Come on, let's get this done.'

As a working mom, you're running around all the time, and you're trying to figure out what can my kid eat that's healthy because, I guess, I'm 'supposed to do that.'

Prior to having babies, I thought - I thought I was so busy, and now I realize just how ignorant I was.

I'm always up at 7:30, usually earlier. Having three kids will do that.

I have a two-year-old at home, and my whole life is - besides revolved around keeping this little person alive, just watching them on the stairs and eating food and everything of every minute of every day - you plan what time you're going to bed so that you can be your best self first thing in the morning.

Parenting definitely has some challenging moments.

Especially since having children, a lot of the time if you ask me, 'Have you read that book?' the answer would be 'not personally.'

I'd always been around kids, and when you don't have kids, you have a lot more time to do things. Before I had kids, I was a lot more prolific and wrote books a lot faster.

I have three kids, and that's a big part of staying focused.

I had children very young. You go through a period of immense guilt about being a working mother.

Like some people they're into nannies and the whole social life and they don't spend time with their kids. I'm always with my kids.