Well, I had this little notion – I started writing when I was eleven, writing poetry. I was passionately addicted to it it was my great refuge through adolescence. – Harry Mathews
Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift. – Harry Mathews
My next project is to get back to that. Actually, to learn how to write poetry. Im not kidding. – Harry Mathews
Well, the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words, that is to say, the distance between what they say theyre saying and what they are actually saying is at its greatest. – Harry Mathews
I know the compassion of others is a relief at first. I dont despise it. But it cant quench pain, it slips through your soul as through a sieve. And when our suffering has been dragged from one pity to another, as from one mouth to another, we can no longer respect or love it. – Georges Bernanos