Christopher Hitchens is the greatest living essayist in the English language. — Christopher Buckley 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
It is a curious fact that the word 'essayist' showed up in English before it existed in French. — John Jeremiah Sullivan 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
“What happens when an essayist starts imagining things, making things up, filling in blank spaces, or — worse yet — leaving the blanks blank?” — John D'Agata 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
“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
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 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
Men there have been who have done the essayist's part so well as to have earned an immortality in the doing; but… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
The essayist . . . can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or… — E. B. White Copy Share Image
“Storytelling creates a healing serum. The thematic unguent of our personal story represents a fusion of the ineffable truths that each of… — Kilroy J. Oldster 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 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
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
“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
“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
“Writing is an exhausting and demoralizing task that destroys human conceits. Writing an elongated series of personal essay opens a person’s mind… — 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
“Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to… — Ralph Waldo Emerson 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
“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
“The language that we employ in internal and written communications with oneself contains complex thoughts. My written self-speech employs language that is… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Writing and other efforts to produce an enduring piece of artwork is a gallant response to the prospect of death. Every person… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Every book adds a grain of humility and humanity to the communal ground that we tread. Writing is the one method that… — 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
“A person gathers all their resources to compose a foursquare philosophy for surviving each day, an engagement driving at a union of… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“Practical affairs task the human brain throughout the day. At night, the mind takes a deserved hiatus to consider the impossible and… — Kilroy J. Oldster Copy Share Image
“The womb of the world births us. My filth comes from the same earthwork that gives rise to all stories. My interior… — 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
“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
“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
My sweet spot as a writer and, especially, as an essayist is sub-1500 words. — Mary H.K. Choi Copy Share Image
Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person. — Diane Johnson Copy Share Image
In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how… — Jose Saramago 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
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
