“The American essayist William Deresiewicz wrote that “no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.” — Michael Finkel Copy Share Image
The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
“A writer is not born but made through study and sheer willpower and ability to embrace beauty and agony.” — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Love is a word, another kind of open. As the diamond comes into a knot of flame I am Black because I… — Audre Lorde Copy Share Image
“Canceled checks will be to future historians and cultural anthropologists what the Dead Sea Scrolls and hieroglyphics are to us.” — Brent Staples Copy Share Image
Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person. — Diane Johnson Copy Share Image
If Plutarch is the essayist I want to believe he is, he would want us all to sit in his chair. — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
“Sentence making is an act of questing into unexplored regions, probing the anarchy of daylight, and exploring the troubling confusion and turmoil… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
“Writing enables a person to build a protective barrier shielding them from an adverse environment, scrutinize their circumstances, and discover how to… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
Special qualities are required of the essayist. A poem or a novel may spring from the inner consciousness of an author. Reasoning… — Flora Thompson Copy Share Image
Any responsible essayist or memoir writer who's writing about herself is not just saying, 'Here's what happened,' and opening up her diary.… — Faith Salie Copy Share Image
“Memory and imagination allow us to enter the womb of creation, devise the lens through which we translate our surroundings, and create… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Each of us, along with our ancestors, inhabits the same cosmos. When we tell stories, we enter the stream of human consciousness;… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
Essayists, like poets, are born and not made, and for one worth remembering, the world is confronted with a hundred not worth… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
“Writing is emblematic art form, which means that the book will never be any greater than the writer’s ability to perceive, classify,… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Writing is a pitched battle with the elusive self, a contest that resultant celebratory jubilee demonstrates the writer’s innate capacity to meld… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Storytelling gives form to the metal dialogue of the mind and in doing so, reveals our self-fiction. Memory and imagination fills part… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Analysis goes a step farther still, and assures us that those impressions of the individual mind to which, for each one of… — Walter Pater Copy Share Image
“All forms of creative thinking involve a struggle to conquer or master something, and usually that specific something eludes us completely. A… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Personal essay writing that incites the mind and instigates personal growth involves examination and re-examination, a process of noticing and reflecting upon… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“We do not use writing exclusively to attain perspective upon our self-referential human existence. We dedicate our essayistic existence to witnessing the… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“The writer’s obsessions are twofold. First, communicate their thoughts onto paper with a great degree of precision in order accurately to express… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Storytelling is an ancient art. The lucent vibes of stories express what we cannot articulate directly. When we hear someone’s story, we… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“The quality of any author’s effort at personal writing and thematic commentary hinges upon the author’s intrinsic limitations, personal vantage point, and… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Writing a personal essay or memoir addresses how a person thinks and behaves in the context of society’s prevailing moral and ethical… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Life is an ongoing journey where the intrepid traveler explores as many tributaries in the river of life as possible. Living consists… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“All writers are demonic dreamers. Writing is an act of sharing experiences and offering of an individualistic perspective of our private attitudes… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Art is long. Life is short, but it deserves our attentive devotion. Embrace life. No person has a monopoly on wisdom. Despite… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French. — John Jeremiah Sullivan Copy Share Image
“Writing is a form of intense thinking that takes a person on a journey into previously uncharted territory of the writer’s mind.” — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
I would have been an essayist in the 18th century. Maybe I'd have had one gag in the piece, but essentially I'd… — Sara Pascoe Copy Share Image
Essayists must not only be succinct but have original ideas and, even harder to come by, or to fake, likable voices. Consciously… — Cyra McFadden Copy Share Image
“Storytelling is ultimately the only way that we know besides song, dance, painting, and music to share with our tribesmen what it… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“All writers want to a place their mark upon human consciousness by creating a physical record of their distinctive thoughts and an… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Personal essay writing is analogous to undertaking a vision quest, a potential turning point in life taken to discover intimate personal truths,… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
The essayist has to follow a certain intellectual pattern. The novelist has the advantage of using fantasy, of being subjective. — Manuel Puig Copy Share Image
“Writing word after word represents a type of power, the sort of command that a person amasses slowly with thoughtful inquiry.” — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Writing allows us to row the mind into new, unanticipated directions, change our stream of consciousness, and alter our very being.” — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
My sweet spot as a writer and, especially, as an essayist is sub-1500 words. — Mary H.K. Choi Copy Share Image
