Well, the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words, that is to say, the distance between what they say they're saying and what they are actually saying is at its greatest. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
My dream, I remember, when I went to boarding school, was to have a study all my own, a little nook someplace where nobody… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
And then, when I left Princeton in the middle of my sophomore year, I went into the navy. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
There are many things I’ve written that I didn’t really understand until a long time later. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
My mother could never understand why I didn't write a thriller, which I've finally done. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
I'd been brought up on the Upper East Side in a WASP society, which was death on crutches. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
My idea was to go to Vienna to study conducting and perhaps play in an orchestra first, so I thought before I got to… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
Well, the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words, that is to say, the distance between… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
Well, I had this little notion - I started writing when I was eleven, writing poetry. I was passionately addicted to it; it was… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
“She was disgusted with herself...and the disgust permanently cured her of suicide. Her piddling life did not deserve dramatic remedies.” — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
I also had this mistaken dream, fantasy really - perhaps because I'm good at languages - of being able in both Italy and France… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
I graduated in 1952 and went to Europe, with Niki and our first child Laura, who was then a year old. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
What I said about John was that he liberated me from my anxieties about writing in a correct, acceptable way. — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
“Lewis, anything but dull, suffered from an excess of misguided cleverness: he could disparage himself brilliantly in a matter of seconds. He knew literature,… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
I thought Cheever was magnificent and that if I could write like him that would be the best I could do. And then I… — Harry Mathews Copy Share Image
