You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel. Phillip Lopate More Quotes by Phillip Lopate More Quotes From Phillip Lopate The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'. Phillip Lopate workfunbeach The essay must be artistically rendered: You must keep the reader engaged, whether with wit, conflict, mischief, and/or yes, with honesty. Phillip Lopate witconflicthonesty Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas. Phillip Lopate dilemmaessaysconversation Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator. Phillip Lopate trustworthynarratorsconfession A personal essay often includes some or a lot of personal confession. That makes the reader feel less lonely in their confusion and darkness. Phillip Lopate confusionlonelydarkness Doubt is my boon companion, the faithful St. Bernard ever at my side. Whether writing essays or just going about daily life, I am constantly second-guessing myself. My mind is filled with 'yes, buts,' 'so whats?' and other skeptical rejoinders. I am forever monitoring myself for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance, false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity and, guess what, I keep finding examples. Age has not made me wiser, except maybe in retrospect. Phillip Lopate humilityforeverwriting The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish. Phillip Lopate lonelyimportantexample I've had an enduring appreciation of psychology. Phillip Lopate endurepsychologyappreciation Have fun writing, because it enhances both the writer's and reader's experience. Phillip Lopate having-funwritingfun Think of a dinner party as a club of revolutionaries, a technocratic elite whose social interactions that night are a dry run for some future takeover of the state. Phillip Lopate partyrunningnight In new work, we need to see the shadow, however faint, of previous literary effort. Phillip Lopate effortshadowneeds Hedonism can be a rational response to a difficult life. Phillip Lopate hedonismrationaldifficult In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you're always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out. Phillip Lopate twistsplotmind I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me. Phillip Lopate judgmentenoughsecret Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot. Phillip Lopate treatscreativitypeople The essay is a wonderful medium. I might mention that some writers who longed to be novelists were better as essayists: Sontag, Baldwin, Vidal, Mary McCarthy, Mailer. Phillip Lopate novelistswonderfulmight I like the freedom that comes with lowered expectations. Phillip Lopate expectations ... I vowed that I would always respect the right of an individual to kill himself. Whether suicide was a moral or immoral act I no longer felt sure, but of the dignity of its intransigence I was convinced. Phillip Lopate suicidalmoralsuicide The knowledge that my discriminations are skewed and not always universally desirable doesn't stop me in the least from making them. Phillip Lopate discriminationdesirable Contradictory strands create an essay that's richly ambivalent. Phillip Lopate essayscontradictoryambivalent
