I think it's hard sometimes for people to grapple with the real-life consequences of political change. I think that, we as a culture, feel like politics is one sector of our lives that can feel apart from our personal lives and the cultural things we're interested in and the sports we watch. It feels like this separate, different thing.
Ben H. WintersWe forget the conditions - not only in slavery - but after slavery, when there was this purposeful locking out of African Americans from economic opportunity. Or we forget today's incarceration rates, and educational and housing discrimination; all of these things. We pretend that everything that has happened happened long ago, and then we act as if we all now just treat each other equally, everything will be fine.
Ben H. WintersI think that one thing fiction can offer, and must offer, is a place where someone's mind and their imagination can come to rest for a little while.
Ben H. WintersFiction has this special power. It has a power to clarify, to galvanize, to prophesy, and warn.
Ben H. WintersA book is not a tweet. A book is not a half-hour television show. A book requires for both reader and writer sustained discipline attention. It asks you to immerse yourself in something and really deeply feel it.
Ben H. WintersIt is really something, the extent to which we allow ourselves to live without thinking of things that we know, in the abstract, are bad, and are going on right now, somewhere far away. We think, "Well, what are you gonna do?" In a way, that little instinct, that "What are you gonna do?" is the most dangerous thing in the world.
Ben H. Winters