Waterstones Podcast: Zadie Smith 

What did she say that made you believe she is so much more intelligent than other people? I didn't hear anything of the sort.

@@HomeAtLast501But that’s about you. You’re closed. Zadie is superbly Oxbridge educated, representing the best of British policy and social systems. She is a visionaries commentator on many aspects of British life, and the way it has changed. She is deeply humanist, and outward looking, and she recognises the incredible potential of the novel to capture and build our understanding of ourselves and our nation. Whereas your comment sounds resentful, bitter and envious. If you are so closed as your appearance here suggests, I wonder why you would even ask. Happiness definitely does not lie in the direction of derision and envy.

@@Kate-lk6tw I grew up 15 minutes away from Harvard University in the US, had many friends and relatives who attended the school, attended prep high school and some top universities myself, lived near Yale University for several years, and worked in an industry that had me spending A LOT of time with top academics at top universities across the U.S. I also dated a woman for 4 years whose father had a PhD from Harvard, and married a woman whose father 5 advanced degrees, one of which was from Yale, and whose mother attended Yale, and whose father was an academic. Based upon what I know about people who attended elite universities, I don't in any way at all reflexively assume that anyone who attended these schools is somehow set apart. So why is it that nobody can answer the simple question I asked. What did she say in this interview that made you believe she is so much more intelligent and insightful than other people? Just tell me one thing. One small thing.

@@Kate-lk6tw It would really help me to know something she has said that you feel is brilliant and that sets her insights apart. That way I could understand what this genius is, and see whether I agree. But nobody who declares her intellect as being above ours can ever, not once, give a bloody example. All you talked about is her education, and what others have said about her. So it sounds like YOU don't even know why you think she's brilliant. The same is true for so many celebrity worshippers who say similar things about, say, Dylan, or David Foster Wallace. They declare them geniuses, but then they can never, ever name even one thing they have written that reflects this genius, let alone explain why it's so ingenius.