The Dante Chamber Quotes

“People admired her poetry, but she knew there were plenty of readers who questioned it. How could she write brokenhearted verse if she never loved? Why did she compose so much about death if she knew little of life?”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“Dante had done what so many writers could only imagine—turned poetry into a living power, and a living power was something no one could cage inside the covers of a book.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber: A Novel

“He always came back to the belief that creeds, religious and otherwise, were for those who did not have sufficient internal more guidance.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“Nobody knew what they were supposed to believe or what neighbors and relatives believed. Ghosts suddenly became as legitimate an option as anyone’s god.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“In younger years, he’d wonder whether he was more doctor or writer. Since the dark period back home, he questioned if he was really either—witnessing death all around him had robbed him of both.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“...and since the beginning of human history the soldier and the poet had shared great (or terrible) imaginations that remade their surroundings.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“The boundary between being an exile and being mad seemed to be a fine one... losing one’s rightful place in the world could mean losing one’s mind.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“...the city usually only dulled and interrupted him. He required quiet, and to keep himself to himself, more than any writer he’d known. He was a shy beast who loved his burrow.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber

“When Christina would stop to examine an interesting insect or patch of moss, Gabriel would stand in an impatient pose and shrug, not seeing what was at all interesting about it. Sometimes when writing her children’s lyrics she thought of Gabriel and Lizzie’s son, had he lived, and what he might have grown into.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Chamber: A Novel