Quote

Write about the things that attract you. Choose your subjects the way you used to choose your toys: out of desire.

Harry Mathews

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Harry Mathews
Age: 86 †
Born: 1930
Born: February 14
Died: 2017
Died: January 25
Author
Novelist
Poet
Translator
Writer
New York City
New York
Used
Writing
Way
Attract
Things
Toys
Subjects
Choose
Desire
Write

More quotes by Harry Mathews

Image
I left Princeton, but I graduated Harvard, in 1952.
Harry Mathews
Image
I also had this mistaken dream, fantasy really - perhaps because I'm good at languages - of being able in both Italy and France to become someone else through my fluency in the language.
Harry Mathews
Image
I'd been brought up on the Upper East Side in a WASP society, which was death on crutches.
Harry Mathews
Image
I graduated in 1952 and went to Europe, with Niki and our first child Laura, who was then a year old.
Harry Mathews
Image
It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the readers opportunities to follow it at every step.
Harry Mathews
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 Vienna I could do with a little training in Paris.
Harry Mathews
Image
And then, when I left Princeton in the middle of my sophomore year, I went into the navy.
Harry Mathews
Image
There are many things I’ve written that I didn’t really understand until a long time later.
Harry Mathews
Image
What I said about John was that he liberated me from my anxieties about writing in a correct, acceptable way.
Harry Mathews