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"I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority."
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"It just happens to be the way that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them."
"Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope-and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing-that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already.It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so."
"By applying their observational abilities along with full appliance of their logic and creative powers, writers attempt to create mental maps to share with other people regarding what they learned, think, and believe. The writer's vision can sway readers emotional state and in doing influence what they believe and how they behave."
"There are days when writing is within my power and a story unfolds along a course I've already chosen. And then there are days when the words breathe on their own and take me by the hand, leading me along unfathomed paths. Either way, the end result is this author's fairytale."
"The act of writing is a contemplative vision quest, a somber expedition of discovery that requires the writer to subordinate their ego in order to travel in soulful solitude towards a desirable personal haven of rejuvenating enlightenment. Writing for personal growth entails unconditionally surrendering oneself to the struggle of tearing their sense of self apart. It demands the solemn willpower to dissect and analyze the fissures of a self-absorbent soul one layer at a time."
Explore more quotes by Peter Matthiessen
"I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority."
"In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience."
"Here I am, safely returned over those peaks from a journey far more beautiful and strange than anything I had hoped for or imagined - how is it that this safe return brings such regret?"
"I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes."
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