"In short-to overstate the point only slightly-because people don't really know why they do what they do, they give explanations of their own behavior that are about as reliable as anyone else's, and in many circumstances actually less so."

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The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms.

— Elizabeth Bowen