Madison Smartt Bell

To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that can't get through the mesh to bite you.

— Madison Smartt Bell

Jeremy Popkin's collection of first-person narratives of the Haitian Revolution is an extremely valuable work, accessible, sound and intelligent. I only wish…

— Madison Smartt Bell

“Here, when you looked into darkness, there was God.”

— Madison Smartt Bell

Since the 1960s, exile for Haitians is a condition that ends only to begin again.

— Madison Smartt Bell

“Nothing could have been prevented. But still you know that somehow something wasn't watching. Something let attention lapse, releasing everything that follows,…

— Madison Smartt Bell

I had been an abject fan of Robert Stone since the early eighties, when I borrowed a copy of 'A Flag for…

— Madison Smartt Bell

John Fahey, thought during his lifetime to be possibly more than a little crazy, was the author of some thirty albums of…

— Madison Smartt Bell

In TheColorful Apocalypse, Greg Bottoms explores the frontier between inspiration and psychosis with the expressive power, the passionate fervor, and the faithfully…

— Madison Smartt Bell

Haiti was founded by African slaves who rose against their European masters, had a revolution, and created a new state. There is…

— Madison Smartt Bell

Edwidge Danticat's prose has a Chekhovian simplicity--an ability to state the most urgent truths in a measured and patiently plain style that…

— Madison Smartt Bell

I have always had a mystical attitude toward inspiration. That's my nature.

— Madison Smartt Bell

“We don't kill for no reason. As he spoke, the hummingbird pulsed between his palms like a heartbeat, whirred into the air…

— Madison Smartt Bell

Our cultural capital has changed tremendously on its way into the twenty-first century. Manhattan has been secured and sanitized; it's smoke- and…

— Madison Smartt Bell

I dont call myself a very good Christian, but I think I know one when I see one, and I also think…

— Madison Smartt Bell

Imaginative writing has always been a solitary and indeed a somewhat antisocial activity. Apprenticeship existed, no doubt, but it was an apprenticeship…

— Madison Smartt Bell

“No, she had no belief--none. She was completely alone with herself. The world was empty for her, but she didn't know it.”

— Madison Smartt Bell

I had a house in Haiti, in the hills above the North Atlantic coast. The house appeared as if out of a…

— Madison Smartt Bell

I don't call myself a very good Christian, but I think I know one when I see one, and I also think…

— Madison Smartt Bell

In 'For Whom the Bell Tolls,' Hemingway cozies up to revolution by romanticizing it (and not only with those execrable love scenes).

— Madison Smartt Bell

I have always had a mystical attitude toward inspiration. Thats my nature.

— Madison Smartt Bell

Hemingway's minimalism is based on the psychological mechanics of repression. An echo of his approach can be detected in a favorite trope…

— Madison Smartt Bell

“In your love, my salvation lies.”

— Madison Smartt Bell

One can't do anything alone in Haiti. Sharing and cooperation are so deeply woven into the culture that sometimes it's hard to…

— Madison Smartt Bell

The country is too often assumed to be a backward place: The First World has trouble remembering that Haitians were two centuries…

— Madison Smartt Bell

Normally, most writers don't say, 'I'm going into a mild hypnotic trance.' Typically, they don't know how they do it. Most people,…

— Madison Smartt Bell