Quotes by Madison Smartt Bell - Page 1 | QuoteForever

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

I have always had a mystical attitude toward inspiration. Thats my nature.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Attitude
Inspiration
Mystical
Copy Quote
I have always had a mystical attitude toward inspiration. That's my nature.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Inspiration
Mystical
Copy Quote
Sometimes you don't get but one mistake, if the one you pick is bad enough.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Enough
Mistake
Sometimes
Copy Quote
Since the 1960s, exile for Haitians is a condition that ends only to begin again.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
1960s
Begin Again
Ends
Exile
Haitian
Condition
Copy Quote
To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that cant get through the mesh to bite you.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Mesh
Mosquitoes
Song
Copy Quote
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 / Novelist
Mesh
Soothing
Me Nothing Song
Bite
Me Song Nothing
Mosquito
Copy Quote
I dont call myself a very good Christian, but I think I know one when I see one, and I also think I know when I dont.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Christian
Thinking
Very Good
Copy Quote
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 / Novelist
Bells
Revolution
Tolls
Copy Quote
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 / Novelist
Revolution
Bell
Hemingway
Copy Quote
One can't do anything alone in Haiti. Sharing and cooperation are so deeply woven into the culture that sometimes it's hard to have a separate thought.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Cooperation
Haiti
Woven
Sharing
Copy Quote
Haiti was founded by African slaves who rose against their European masters, had a revolution, and created a new state. There is no other such event in Western history.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Events
Haiti
Masters
Revolution
Rose
Western
African
Event
Copy Quote
I had been an abject fan of Robert Stone since the early eighties, when I borrowed a copy of 'A Flag for Sunrise' to read on a plane to Rome. I was twenty-something, with a first novel under my belt.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Borrowed
Rome
Sunrise
Abject
Belt
Copy
Eighties
Flag
Plane
Robert
Stone
Copy Quote
Imaginative writing has always been a solitary and indeed a somewhat antisocial activity. Apprenticeship existed, no doubt, but it was an apprenticeship to books and not to living masters of the craft.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Book
Doubt
Writing
Copy Quote
Our cultural capital has changed tremendously on its way into the twenty-first century. Manhattan has been secured and sanitized; it's smoke- and trans-fat-free. In the boroughs, many of the old jungles have been cleared as well.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Manhattan
Secured
Smoke
Capital
Cleared
Cultural
Tremendously
Twenty-First
Copy Quote
I had a house in Haiti, in the hills above the North Atlantic coast. The house appeared as if out of a dream: my dream to have a foothold in the country. Like many concepts do in Haiti, the phrase 'pied a terre' became literal, material.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Concepts
Haiti
Hills
Literal
Appeared
Atlantic
Phrase
Copy Quote
The country is too often assumed to be a backward place: The First World has trouble remembering that Haitians were two centuries ahead of us in abolishing slavery and in extending full rights of citizenship to everyone, regardless of race.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Abolish
Extending
Haitian
Assumed
Backward
Centuries
First World
Regardless
Remembering
Copy Quote
Hemingway's minimalism is based on the psychological mechanics of repression. An echo of his approach can be detected in a favorite trope of 1980s minimalists: a pattern of reference to dire secrets and hidden wounds these authors didn't realize they were supposed to have imagined.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Minimalism
Psychological
Repression
Wounds
Authors
Dire
Echo
Hemingway
Hidden
Mechanics
Pattern
Reference
Secrets
Copy Quote
In TheColorful Apocalypse, Greg Bottoms explores the frontier between inspiration and psychosis with the expressive power, the passionate fervor, and the faithfully unflinching honesty for which his work is deservedly known. This book is incisive, startling, and often genuinely moving.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Book
Honesty
Moving
Copy Quote
John Fahey, thought during his lifetime to be possibly more than a little crazy, was the author of some thirty albums of gnomically introverted droning guitar instrumentals, which I listened to heavily in my teens and twenties; I even produced an hour or so of banjo music in an imitative John Fahey style.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Introverted
Lifetime
Teens
Thirty
Twenties
Author
Banjo
Imitative
Produced
Copy Quote
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, when they have a good experience writing, they're well placed in that state, which is also sometimes called a 'flow state.' If you don't have trouble, you don't have to think about it.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Flow
Hypnotic
Trance
Experience Good People
Mild
Normally
Placed
Copy Quote
Edwidge Danticat's prose has a Chekhovian simplicity--an ability to state the most urgent truths in a measured and patiently plain style that gathers a luminous energy as it moves inexorably forward. In this book she makes a strong case that art, for immigrants from countries where human rights and even survival are often in jeopardy, must be a vocation to witness if it is not to be an idle luxury.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Art
Country
Strong
Copy Quote
Jeremy Popkin's collection of first-person narratives of the Haitian Revolution is an extremely valuable work, accessible, sound and intelligent. I only wish such a book had been available fifteen years ago when I was in the early stages of researching my series of novels. Popkin has been deft and tactful in stitching together these excerpts, and as a result, he manages to tell a complete version of the Revolution almost entirely in the words of the people who experienced it-this book engaged me deeply.
Madison Smartt Bell / Novelist
Book
Intelligent
Years
Copy Quote

Related Novelist Authors

Zoran Drvenkar
Novelist
Wednesday, Jul 19, 1967
Zia Haider Rahman
Novelist
Zelda Fitzgerald
Novelist
Tuesday, Jul 24, 1900
Wednesday, Mar 10, 1948
Zakes Mda
Novelist
Zadie Smith
Novelist
Saturday, Oct 25, 1975
Zachary Lazar
Novelist
Yxta Maya Murray
Novelist
Yury Olesha
Novelist
Friday, Mar 03, 1899
Tuesday, May 10, 1960
Yasutaka Tsutsui
Novelist
Monday, Sep 24, 1934
Yasmine Galenorn
Novelist
Xiaolu Guo
Novelist
Wu Cheng'en
Novelist
Wright Morris
Novelist
Thursday, Jan 06, 1910
Saturday, Apr 25, 1998
Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont
Novelist
Tuesday, May 07, 1867
Saturday, Dec 05, 1925
Witold Gombrowicz
Novelist
Thursday, Aug 04, 1904
Thursday, Jul 24, 1969

View All Novelist Quotes

Top Authors

Stephen Hawking
Physicist
Thursday, Jan 08, 1942
Steve Jobs
Entrepreneur
Thursday, Feb 24, 1955
Wednesday, Oct 05, 2011
Michael Jordan
Basketball Player
Sunday, Feb 17, 1963
Vince Lombardi
Football Player
Wednesday, Jun 11, 1913
Thursday, Sep 03, 1970
Steven Wright
Comedian
Tuesday, Dec 06, 1955
Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
Peter Drucker
Author
Friday, Nov 19, 1909
Friday, Nov 11, 2005
Maya Angelou
Author
Wednesday, Apr 04, 1928
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Deepak Chopra
Author
Wednesday, Oct 22, 1947
Joe Biden
Vice President Of The United States
Friday, Nov 20, 1942
Dolly Parton
Singer-Songwriter
Saturday, Jan 19, 1946
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Elon Musk
Investor
Monday, Jun 28, 1971
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philologist
Tuesday, Oct 15, 1844
Saturday, Aug 25, 1900
Plato
Philosopher
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970

View All Authors

Share This Page