To Show and to Tell Quotes

“The solution to entrapment in the narcissistic hothouse of self is to not relinquish autobiographical writing, but to expand the self by bringing one's curiosity to interface with more and more history and the present world.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“I can think of another reason... for why thoughts make us sad. We may feel we know too much, or come to know it too early, which is the guilty burden of precocity. Children play to the expectations adults have of them, to behave in a childlike manner, but inside, they may not regard themselves as innocent so much as confused. I grew up sensing that a part of me was faking being a child; I felt I was already an old soul. Lots of people feel that, particularly those who will go on to become writers.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph,”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself. The other element that keeps me reading nonfiction happily is an evolved, entertaining, elegant, or at least highly intentional literary style. The pressure of style should be brought to bear on every passage. "Consciousness plus style equals good nonfiction" is one way of stating the formula.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“Part of the storytelling ability is simply the anticipation of boredom.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“For all their shared boundaries, the experiences of fiction and nonfiction are fundamentally different. In the traditional short story or novel, a fictive space is opened up that allows you the reader to disappear into the action, even to the point of forgetting you are reading. 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. This is certainly true for the essay, but it is also true, I think, for classic nonfiction in general, be it Thucydides or Pascal or Carlyle, which follows an organizing principle that can be summarized as “tracking the consciousness of the author.” What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself. The other element that keeps me reading nonfiction happily is an evolved, entertaining, elegant, or at least highly intentional literary style. The pressure of style should be brought to bear on every passage. “Consciousness plus style equals good nonfiction” is one way of stating the formula.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“What makes me want to keep reading a nonfiction text is the encounter with a surprising, well-stocked mind as it takes on the challenge of the next sentence, paragraph, and thematic problem it has set for itself. The other element that keeps me reading nonfiction happily is an evolved, entertaining, elegant, or at least highly intentional literary style. The pressure of style should be brought to bear on every passage. “Consciousness plus style equals good nonfiction” is one way of stating the formula. For me, the great adventure in reading nonfiction is to follow, as I say, a really interesting, unpredictable mind struggling to entangle and disentangle itself in a thorny problem, or even a frivolous problem that is made complex through engagement with a sophisticated mind.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“To be a writer is a monstrously arrogant act. It presumes that you should be listened to for pages on end... But there is much in the culture to clip the wings of arrogance, mute assertion, and encourage speedy consensus.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“As Kafka advised, “In the struggle between yourself and the world, you must side with the world.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“Even if it were the case that they could have intuited the same insight strictly from scenes, I still would want to encourage emerging writers to put into words what they think about an experience when retelling it.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

“No one can expect to write well who will not first take the risk of writing badly.”
― Phillip Lopate, To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction