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 ahead of us in abolishing slavery and in extending full rights of citizenship to everyone, regardless of race.

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.

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.

If you want to go out for a hunting trip and shoot cans with your son and a .22, that's fine. Do I need an AK-47 with a 100-round magazine if I'm going on a hunting trip? No. It is, to borrow a phrase from Confucius, like using a cannon to kill a mosquito.