Quotes from 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.

What begins as taste becomes religion

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

believes the world is against him. Nothing

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as 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.

Beware the camel's nose—for its whole body will soon follow.

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?

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

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.

Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone.

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.

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.