In their own words

Paul Bowles quotes

6 quotations, each verified against its source and credited to the work it comes from — the wording as Paul Bowles wrote or said it, not as the internet passes it around.

I don't see myself as a consummate anything.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

I didn't find the United States particularly interesting and once I found places that were more interesting I chose to live in them, which I think makes sense.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

There was nothing I wanted there, and once I'd moved away I saw that all I needed from the States was money. I went back there for that.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

I cut the composing cord in 1947, when I moved here, although, as I say, I went back several times to write scores for Broadway.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

You do them with separate parts of the brain, I think. And you derive different kinds of pleasure from them.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

One always thinks everything's got worse—and in most respects it has—but that's meaningless. What does one mean when one says that things are getting worse? It's becoming more like the future, that's all.

— Paul Bowles, interviewed by Jeffrey Bailey, The Paris Review, issue 81, Fall 1981

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