122 Quotes by Peter Matthiessen

Life begins before a soul is born and commences once again with the act of dying, and as in the Afro-Asian symbol of the snake of eternity swallowing its tail, all is in flux, all comes full circle, with no beginning and no end.

Moment by moment, breath by breath...that is my greatest teaching.

Nonfiction at its best is like fashioning a cabinet. It can never be a sculpture. It can be elegant and very beautiful, but it can never be sculpture. Captive to facts - or predetermined form - it cannot fly.

There is a difference between right and wrong, always was and always will be, but each man's wrong and each man's right are different.

This world is painted on a wild dark metal

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

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.