Quotes by Peter Matthiessen

About Peter Matthiessen:

Peter Matthiessen was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer and CIA agent. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review, he was a three-time National Book Award winner. He was also a prominent environmental activist. His nonfiction featured nature and travel, notably The Snow Leopard (1978) and American Indian issues and history, such as a detailed and controversial study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). His fiction was adapted for film: the early story "Travelin' Man" was made into The Young One (1960) by Luis Buñuel and the novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965) into the 1991 film of the same name.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It is related that Sakyamuni [the historical Buddha] once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had spent twenty years of his human existence learning to w...

Peter Matthiessen

When I'm in the field, when I'm working, I keep very careful notes. I wear big shirts with big breast pockets, and I carry in them two little spiral notebooks.

Peter Matthiessen

I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority.

Peter Matthiessen

I think in any writing you're paying attention to detail.

Peter Matthiessen

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?

Peter Matthiessen

When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions -...

Peter Matthiessen

In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.

Peter Matthiessen

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.

Peter Matthiessen

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 fo...

Peter Matthiessen

Author Bio

  • NamePeter Matthiessen
  • DescriptionAmerican novelist
  • BornMay 22, 1927
  • DiedApril 5, 2014
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionNovelist; Writer
  • WorksThe Snow Leopard
  • AwardsNational Book Award; John Burroughs Medal