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I still have my high school copy of the collected Poe - missing its covers and pretty worse for the wear.
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
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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death.
Matthew Pearl
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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
What's most explosive about historical fiction is to use the fictional elements to pressure the history to new insights.
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
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Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another.
Matthew Pearl -
...and luckily I have enough in my head to balance what is wanting in my back.
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 -
Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long.
Matthew Pearl -
There's a remarkable power about reading together, reading collectively, that's brought out by reading groups.
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