Matthew Pearl Quotes & Sayings

When it comes to referring to Dickens's life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian. — Matthew Pearl

I was looking for something else in books. I could not really say what, but I think I can say why: a notion started in my own brain was probably wrong, but an answer read in a work of literature would be right. That was my conviction at nineteen, and only in later years would I come to trust myself over a book. — Matthew Pearl

I love writing shorter fiction. — Matthew Pearl

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

Edgar Allan Poe, an earlier UVA student, once complained in a letter that his stepfather spoke to him as if Poe were one of the black slaves; some of the students at UVA surely felt the same about being told what to do by faculty. — Matthew Pearl

As a writer of historical fiction, I believe you don't want to fictionalize gratuitously; you want the fictional aspects to prod and pressure the history into new and exciting reactions. — Matthew Pearl

Before long, I had lost my youth and my patience for indulging others. Books were everything in life; books were better than wine. — Matthew Pearl

With James Reese's vivid and chilling novel, readers will gain a whole new appreciation of two gothic landmarks, Dracula and Jack the Ripper. Not only does The Dracula Dossier grip us with its fast paced hunt for history's most notorious killer, it also enchants us with sophisticated and lyrical recreations of its unique period and strong characters. A daring achievement. — Matthew Pearl

Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly american poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the first true reader. The spirit of the american is suspected to be timid, imitative, tame
the scholar decent, indolent, complaisant. The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. Without action, the scholar is not yet man. Ideas must work through the bones and arms of good men or they are no better than dreams. — Matthew Pearl

Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long. — Matthew Pearl

You are always better off to read a book, anyway, than to meet the person behind it. — Matthew Pearl

These tears were difficult: they didn't want to come out and they didn't want to stay in. — Matthew Pearl

You have never fought for anything in your life. You write poems and articles about slavery and the murder of Indians and hope something will change. You fight what does not come near your door, professors. You've inherited everything in your lives and do not know what it is to cry for your bread! Well, with what other expectations did I come to this country? What should I complain of? The greatest bard had no home but exile. One day to come, perhaps, I shall walk on my own shores again, one more with true friends, before I leave this earth. — Matthew Pearl

When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing. — Matthew Pearl

I had a dog named Oliver with severe separation anxiety. He couldn't be alone ... so I had to bring him wherever I went. — Matthew Pearl

Considering what a prolific writer Dickens was, the word 'Dickensian' could legitimately cover a vast thematic territory, explaining at least some of the variety of its applications. — Matthew Pearl

When Dickens arrives in the United States in November of 1867, he's already in questionable health. So by the end of the trip, he was really in failing condition, and really, he would never recover completely after this point, and you could sort of draw a straight line to his ultimate decline and death. — Matthew Pearl

What's most explosive about historical fiction is to use the fictional elements to pressure the history to new insights. — 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

How odd it must be to go through life believing that a book is a book. — Matthew Pearl

I still have my high school copy of the collected Poe - missing its covers and pretty worse for the wear. — Matthew Pearl

The intense media coverage of today's campus shootings presents a double edged sword. On the one hand, it gives us a chance to think about and reflect on the causes; on the other hand, in a very small minority of unstable minds, the repeated telling of the stories can be interpreted as glamorous. — Matthew Pearl

Books do pretend ... but squeezed in between is even more that is true - without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see? — 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

Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print — 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

believes the world is against him. Nothing — Matthew Pearl

I prefer the society of one faithful person to an association of rapid talkers, who more than anything else seek admiration from one another. — Matthew Pearl

The novel has always been a contradictory form. Here is a long form narrative mainly read originally by consumers who were only newly literate or limited in their literacy. The novel ranked below poetry, essay and history in prestige for a long time. — 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

There was still the temptation to believe the world was a mere trap for human sin. But sin, the way he saw it, was only the failure of an imperfectly made being to keep a perfect law. — Matthew Pearl

As new technology emerges as the greatest challenge to novels since the advent of film, it may be that the fragmentation of storytelling into installments key to Dickens's era will be recreated in some way. — Matthew Pearl

One important idea I hope is reflected in 'The Poe Shadow' is that fiction can add as much to history as nonfiction does. — Matthew Pearl

Romance is not an idea, but a moment. An unspoken glance when someone looks into your eyes and knows exactly who you are, what you need. — Matthew Pearl

On the trees were no longer only leaves but brown fruits, on the bushes no longer blossoms but clusters of red berries. And the wind had a rough manliness in its voice - the tone not of a lover but of a husband. — Matthew Pearl

'Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as a mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will not have succeeded in that high sense which alone makes a nation out of a people. That which raises it from a dead name to a living power.' — Matthew Pearl

Why did nature not ask my advice about my features? — Matthew Pearl

What's the use of having eyes if we can't see the world we pass through? — Matthew Pearl

'Do not ask what brings Dante to man but what brings man to Dante-to personally enter his sphere, though it is forever severe and unforgiving.' — Matthew Pearl

When Charles Dickens arrived in Boston Harbor, where he started, they had to keep it secret because there was such a mob of people expecting him, and they actually chased down his carriage at the hotel, the Parker House Hotel. — 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

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

Dante's Hell is part of our world as much as part of the underworld, and shouldn't be avoided, Lowell said, but rather confronted. We sound the depths of Hell very often in this life. — Matthew Pearl

We never like the smell of our own vices in other people, Holmes. Ah, let's steer here for a drink or two," Lowell suggested. — Matthew Pearl

Survival here means simply an incomplete death, not a partial life
to be trapped in a gap between the living and the dead. If I had a thousand tongues, I would not try to describe the agony! — Matthew Pearl

Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another. — Matthew Pearl

Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow," said Holmes, "you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion. — Matthew Pearl

Only a few pages into "The Technologists" and Matthew Pearl already has written a gem about Boston:
"Then would come the view of the stretches of docks and piers ... then beyond that the State House's gold dome capping the horizon - the glittering cranium of the world's smartest city. — Matthew Pearl

[Benjamin Franklin]. Not only one of our nation's founding geniuses but a printer and publisher, too ... He knew that to form the soul of America, one must control the presses. — Matthew Pearl

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, film has been a shadow thrown over the minds of all novelists. Ever since, novelists have strained to make themselves more relevant and, whether consciously or not, novel-writing has been influenced by cinematic doctrines - by turns, embracing and defying it. — Matthew Pearl

Harvard was also a little bit of a villain in my first book, 'The Dante Club.' I guess there might be a way to make Harvard more of a sympathetic presence, but it's such a powerful institution that it more naturally lends itself toward not necessarily a negative but an obstructionist element in a story. — Matthew Pearl

Imagine! It is the real power of a book
not what is on the page, but what happens when a reader takes the pages in, makes it part of himself. That is the definition of literature. — Matthew Pearl

Money is good, but it is not all about a man. You will have successes and reversals, but remember it is your reaction to each of them that counts for your character. — Matthew Pearl

Poe was plagued and haunted most of all by something pretty banal: poverty. Probably the most eccentric decision in life was to become a writer in an age when making a living at it was nearly impossible. — Matthew Pearl

I think respectful conflict is intrinsic to the spirit of literature. It reminds us that literary history is living and evolving and thrives on us being active participants. — Matthew Pearl

Up until the final decade of the nineteenth century, the United States and the United Kingdom did not recognize copyright in each other's creative works. — Matthew Pearl

And luckily I have enough in my head to balance what is wanting in my back. — Matthew Pearl

Surprisingly, it was not an American but a British company that opened an amusement park in 2007 called Dickens World, located in the English county of Kent, complete with an Ebenezer Scrooge Haunted House, a Great Expectations Boat Ride and the as-advertised 'costumed Dickensian characters.' — Matthew Pearl

There's a remarkable power about reading together, reading collectively, that's brought out by reading groups. — Matthew Pearl

No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. "The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves trying to make him say he is of their politics and their way of thinking. Their way indeed! To confine it to Florence or Italy is to banish it from the sympathies of mankind. We read Paradise Lost as a poem but Dante's Comedy as a chronicle of our inner lives. Do you boys know of Isaiah 38:10 — Matthew Pearl

The force of Dante's poetry resonated most in those who did not confess the Catholic faith, for believers would inevitably have quibbles with Dante's theology. But for those most distant theologically, Dante's faith was so perfect, so unyielding, that a reader found himself compelled by the poetry to take it all to heart. — Matthew Pearl

Milton was the gold standard of religious poets for English and American scholars. But Milton wrote of Hell and Heaven from above and below, respectively, not from the inside: safer advantages. — Matthew Pearl

Porter Square Books was the only place I could find that was dog-friendly, work-friendly, and had food. I was there all the time. — Matthew Pearl

Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow farer true through life,
Heart whole and soul free,
The August father gave to me. — Matthew Pearl

That bookshops will one day disappear altogether and be replaced by mail order, that eventually books themselves would be finally and fully buried by that awful foe, so much cheaper and easier to carry: newspapers. — Matthew Pearl

They always blamed my reading, you know, for my having fewer friends than my brother and for my weak eyes, never thinking that because I had weak eyes and because I was shy, having a book at the ready rescued me. — Matthew Pearl

The book I'm working on next, which will be my fifth, returns to literary history. I really do love literary history, and I have plenty more ideas on it. — Matthew Pearl

Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Second, they say it has been discovered before. Last, they say they always believed it. — Matthew Pearl

Believe that when I am at once a man's friend I am always so-nor is it so very hard to bring me to it. And though a man may enjoy himself in being my enemy, he cannot make me HIS for longer than I wish. Good afternoon." Lowell had a way of leaving a conversation with the other person needing more from him. — Matthew Pearl

A man's library opens up his character to the world. — 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

One thing I incorporated in my novel 'The Poe Shadow' was the little-known fact that documents show Poe inherited a slave and decided to free him. — Matthew Pearl

Exaggeration is the octopus of the English language — Matthew Pearl

Remember that there are two things in this life that are never worth crying about: what can be cured and what cannot be cured. — Matthew Pearl

If we think about what mystery entails as a genre, certainly a big part of it is a resolution. — Matthew Pearl

I don't like my birthday. I don't like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book. — Matthew Pearl

I tend to have an endless number of ideas for writing projects. I don't necessarily say that as a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing, but I have ideas for all kinds of projects: contemporary novels, graphic novels, anything that happens to go through my mind. — Matthew Pearl

A man was leaning idly against an elm ... The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer. — Matthew Pearl

'Yes, we rather condemn people for eternity without the courtesy of informing them.' — Matthew Pearl

Films have become shorter in length, jumpier in style, and simpler in story so that they can be more easily transferred to once under-exploited international markets. — Matthew Pearl

For several years at the University of Virginia, students had an annual tradition of raising hell around campus, burning tar barrels and shooting pistols into the air. — Matthew Pearl

What they don't realize is that sequels are bound to disappoint those who have waited for them. — 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

Unlike New York or Chicago, once you were inside Boston, any point in the city was fairly convenient to any other. — 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

...It is the one time Dante calls such explicit attention to the idea of contrapasso-a word for which we have no exact translation, no precise definition in English, because the word in itself is its definition... Well, my dear Longfellow, I would say countersuffering ... the notion that each sinner must be punished by continuing the damage of his own sin against him... just as these Schismatics are cut apart... — Matthew Pearl

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

He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death. — 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

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

I was fortunate that Yale has a very open and creative law school. I took many courses outside the law school, and every semester, the students had a literature reading group. I was asked to lead one on 'Dante and the Concept of Justice,' and it was around that time that I began writing the novel. — Matthew Pearl

'The Dante Club' was one of America's most important book clubs, as their Wednesday night meetings ultimately led to our country's first exposure to Dante's poetry on a wide scale. — Matthew Pearl

Dickens's final book, 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' forms the jumping-off point for my new novel, 'The Last Dickens'. This last work by Dickens has very little social commentary and a pretty tightly efficient storyline and cast of characters. Not necessarily what we think of when we think what characterizes Dickens. — Matthew Pearl

My high school English teacher in junior year, Dr. Robert Parsons, assigned us some Poe stories, including 'The Black Cat' and 'The Purloined Letter.' Being an animal person, I had trouble with 'The Black Cat!' I got hooked instead by 'The Purloined Letter,' a Poe story with detective C. Auguste Dupin. — Matthew Pearl

Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone. — Matthew Pearl

An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, 'one who cannot be yoked,' and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials. — Matthew Pearl

'Pity without rigor would be cowardly egotism, mere sentimentality.' — Matthew Pearl

Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound, "If only I could secure a violent death."
"Pardon?"
"What a fine success!" Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in his thoughts. "I wish to die in my boots, you see, Mr. Porter. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from this horse into a ditch, Mr. Fergins
aye, to be hanged, rather than pass through the slow dissolution of illnesses! — Matthew Pearl

Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasteries with quills raised in the air, decrying the work of the devil. When one of the pioneering tradesmen printed certain words in red ink to emphasize them, it was proof that he had used his own blood. That was why the printers' assistants began to be called "devils." Soon printers were threatened with burning, and some were indeed put into the fire along with their equipment. From the beginning, the creation of the modern book was viewed as the work of Satan - an attempt to usurp the word of God. — Matthew Pearl

Dante is the first Christian poet, the first one whose whole system of thought is colored by a pure Christian theology. But the poem comes nearer to us than this. It is there real history of a brother man, of a tempted, purified, and at last triumphant human soul; it teaches the benign ministry of sorrow. His is the first keel that ever ventured into the silent sea of human consciousness to find a new world of poetry. He held heartbreak at bay for twenty years, and would not let himself die until he had done his task. Neither shall Longfellow. Neither shall I."
Lowell turned and started to descend. — Matthew Pearl