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1 " Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true—without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see? "
― Matthew Pearl , The Last Dickens
2 " It is not when a man is at the end of his life, but when a man is at the end of his profession, that his soul shows itself. "
― Matthew Pearl , The Last Bookaneer
3 " He worshipped at the temple of her intellect and I believe it was a comfort to him to know that she left our world with it still shining. "
4 " An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, 'one who cannot be yoked,' and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials. "
5 " Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on... "
6 " These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves. "
7 " A man was leaning idly against an elm. ... The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer. "
― Matthew Pearl , The Dante Club (The Dante Club #1)
8 " exaggeration is the octopus of the English language "
9 " ...It is the one time Dante calls such explicit attention to the idea of contrapasso-a word for which we have no exact translation, no precise definition in English, because the word in itself is its definition... Well, my dear Longfellow, I would say countersuffering ... the notion that each sinner must be punished by continuing the damage of his own sin against him... just as these Schismatics are cut apart... "
10 " Though an angel should write, still 'tis devils must print "
11 " People hate the idea of politicians, you see, but love the idea of authors, at least until they meet one. "
12 " Avoid the Holy Grail, the heroic journeys, the pursuit of a legend--that is not the life of the bookaneer, who must keep his eyes on the ground while other book people live by dreaming. "
13 " A man's library opens up his character to the world. "
14 " Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another. "
15 " He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death. "
16 " Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow," said Holmes, "you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion. "
17 " Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long. "
18 " Imagine! It is the real power of a book--not what is on the page, but what happens when a reader takes the pages in, makes it part of himself. That is the definition of literature. "
19 " When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing. "
20 " Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Second, they say it has been discovered before. Last, they say they always believed it. "
― Matthew Pearl , The Technologists
