Madison Smartt Bell > Quotes

“Sometimes you don't get but one mistake, if the one you pick is bad enough.”
― Madison Smartt Bell

“It's a marriage of convenience. Temporarily, so long as our interests coincide, however long it takes to dispose of that mob of petit blancs at Port-au-Prince. Afterward,' he waved his sticky fingers airily, 'everything will return to the way it was before.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising

“(In principle, this is a useful idea for writers at all stages: if a good story plot somehow won’t work out right, it may be that the point of view is in the wrong place.) There”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Narrative Design: Working with Imagination, Craft, and Form

“Nothing could have been prevented. But still you know that somehow something wasn't watching. Something let attention lapse, releasing everything that follows, as the weight falls from the air.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There

“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, Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There

“We don't kill for no reason. As he spoke, the hummingbird pulsed between his palms like a heartbeat, whirred into the air and flew.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There

“Here, when you looked into darkness, there was God.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There

“In your love, my salvation lies.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Zig Zag Wanderer: Stories from Here, Stories from There

“Through suicide, infanticide, abortion, starvation, neglect, overwork, and murder, the black slaves of Saint Domingue died off at a much faster rate than they could replace themselves by new births. It was necessary for the proprietors to import twenty thousand fresh slaves from Africa annually in order to maintain the workforce at a constant level.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising

“All the same, terror can be a useful instrument,” he said. “So long as it’s used judiciously.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising

“Sixty-four different shades of color were identified (and named) among the mulattoes, and social status depended on the lightness of the shade.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising

“Like a good many men, artists or not, Stone liked to go out with ravishing women who were some kind of crazy, but preferred to go home to somebody sane. With the possible exception of Pablo Picasso, this pattern of behavior is not sustainable for anyone in the long term.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, Child of Light: A Biography of Robert Stone

“The cross of Baron Samedi was in this place. Someone had carved it onto a little barrel and strung it up high in one of the thorn trees. But I thought that Ghede did not want these bones. Maybe Jesus didn’t want them either. They were alone like sticks or rocks, sinking into the jungle floor, with leaves falling down to cover them. The vultures and pigs didn’t come anymore, but the butterflies flew over the bones, through the patches of sun that came down through the leaves of the thorn trees.”
― Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls' Rising