Peter Matthiessen Quotes

Peter Matthiessen — American Writer born on May 22, 1927,

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 2008 National Book Award winner. He was also a prominent environmental activist. His nonfiction featured nature and travel, notably The Snow Leopard and American Indian issues and history, such as a detailed and controversial study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. His fiction was adapted for film: the early story "Travelin' Man" was made into The Young One by Luis Buñuel and the novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord into the 1991 film of the same name... (wikipedia)

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

Peter Matthiessen Quotes

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