Harry Mathews Quotes

We had the experience, but we missed the meaning.

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

I write to make sense of things that don't make sense to me.

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

It's not finding what's lost, it's understanding what you've found.

There are many words and definitions I have never lost. But some I am only just beginning to truly understand.

Only recently I’ve learned, it’s an obvious thing, but it just took me a while to realize

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

This taught me a lesson, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

Writing is incredibly important to me as a way of handling the world, understanding how it works.

It was difficult for me because I was searching for the answer for so long, and the answer was right in front of me. Do what I do best.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

The older you get the more you understand what you're doing.

I kind of woke up one morning and was like, 'Oh I see what's happening, I get everything'. I woke up and was like, 'I get it, I'm a product.'

Writing is how I find out what I believe and what I care most deeply about. It's how I sort through the mess of daily experience and try to make sense of it - by stepping out of it for a while. Writing is how I train a searchlight into the darker corners of my self and the world, as I'm sure I'd never do otherwise.

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

Whenever you're talking about meaning, basically... I think a lot of the human experience has to do with trying to understand what things mean, and there's not really any tools to do that unless you're thinking about it in a more spiritual or philosophical realm.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.

All my work is always that exploration of human nature.

Many times I have written something, and after it was published, I understood what I was saying.

Each film has taught me something new - be it about myself, my craft, my profession, people.

The more you understand yourself, the more you will understand the world.

How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?