It is Dante who decides who should be punished and where they go, what torments they suffer. It is the poet who takes those measures, yet by making himself the journeyer, he tries to make us forget: We think he too is another innocent witness to god’s work.

— Matthew Pearl

Matthew Pearl Quotes

I do not seek the mantle of genius. I am an appreciator, an observer, a preposition, and content in that, and that’s me in a nutshell.

— Matthew Pearl

These tears were difficult: they didn’t want to come out and they didn’t want to stay in.

— Matthew Pearl

The same thing as you, the same as she. The same as anyone who has ever been doubted or told to go away. To prove myself better.

— Matthew Pearl

Longfellow smiled. “A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, my dear Lowell, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.

— Matthew Pearl

It is my conviction that we make ourselves who we want to be and not chain ourselves to the notions of busybodies who wish to judge us.

— Matthew Pearl

It is not when a man is at the end of his life, but when a man is at the end of his profession, that his soul shows itself.

— Matthew Pearl

People hate the idea of politicians, you see, but love the idea of authors, at least until they meet one.

— Matthew Pearl

Beware the camel’s nose – for its whole body will soon follow.

— Matthew Pearl

When you ask one friend to dine, give him your best wine. When you ask two, the second best will do.

— Matthew Pearl

He worshipped at the temple of her intellect and I believe it was a comfort to him to know that she left our world with it still shining.

— Matthew Pearl

Now, on his way to another lecture, the very thought of entering a room full of students, who still thought it was possible to learn all about something, made him yawn.

— Matthew Pearl

These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.

— Matthew Pearl

When I ply the cutlass and make the equivalent of sixpence, idiot conscience applauds me. But if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds by writing, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted. No, to come down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and rain after some hours in the bush. To change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, that makes for a quiet conscience.

— Matthew Pearl

Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on...

— Matthew Pearl

What’s the use of having eyes if we can’t see the world we pass through?

— Matthew Pearl

Avoid the Holy Grail, the heroic journeys, the pursuit of a legend – that is not the life of the bookaneer, who must keep his eyes on the ground while other book people live by dreaming.

— Matthew Pearl

People admired her poetry, but she knew there were plenty of readers who questioned it. How could she write brokenhearted verse if she never loved? Why did she compose so much about death if she knew little of life?

— Matthew Pearl

I never fully realized how much a New England birth in itself was worth, but I am happy that that was my lot. I have felt it so keenly these last few days. Dear old New England, with all her sternness and uncompromising opinions; the home of all that is good and noble.

— Matthew Pearl

What begins as taste becomes religion.

— Matthew Pearl

It is Dante who decides who should be punished and where they go, what torments they suffer. It is the poet who takes those measures, yet by making himself the journeyer, he tries to make us forget: We think he too is another innocent witness to god’s work.

— Matthew Pearl
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