Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy Quotes

“The idea that students don't know how to write clearly and precisely is as old as school itself, probably, but lately it seems as if students no longer know how to read either. It is true on my campus and from I can gather, on many other college campuses. The students understand words, sentences -- they are not illiterate -- but they don't seem to grasp the reasons for reading. They seem baffled when asked to take two thoughts, connect them, and form something new. They read James Baldwin or Henry David Thoreau and their primary reaction seems to be, "Okay, now I've ready that. I'm done." As if the only goal in reading was to have looked at every word.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals

“Joan Didion, one of the finest essayists ever to put neuroses to paper, once said: “I write to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Mister Sensei Essay Writer Guy opens his eyes momentarily, smiles, and says, “When you are not writing, be thoroughly not writing; when you are writing, be writing through and through.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The writer of nonfiction might be starting with events that really happened, but recreating them is an imaginative feat. Ordering them is an imaginative feat. Making sense of them is an imaginative feat.” —Robin Hemley”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“My job is not to just set down events that happened to me. My job is to create an experience for a reader.” —Mary Karr”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused.…Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” —George Saunders”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“if you begin to obsess day and night over the best ways to gain the attention of a well-placed literary agent, stop writing MEMOIR and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of SHORT FICTION or POETICS. Do not write MEMOIR if you have had serious allergic or skin reactions after bathing in bourbon. The most common side effects of MEMOIR include nausea, sleep problems, constipation, gas, and swelling of the navel. If you have side effects that bother you or don’t go away, tell your doctor promptly. He likely won’t care one bit. He is working on his memoir.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Your memory rope may not contain a precise, photographic accounting of past events, because those moments become lost within seconds of anything that occurs. But still, your honest (if not accurate) memories will be attached to those knots, and those honest memories—along with reflection, examination, reconsideration—are precisely what the memoirist has to offer.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. —THOMAS PAINE”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Memory is like a rope, knotted every three or four feet, and hanging down a deep well. When you pull it up, just about anything might be attached to those knots. But you’ll never know what’s there if you don’t pull. And the more you pull at that rope, the more you find.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Those are serious questions. Let me avoid them as best I can.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The difference between a story and an essay is that the storyteller just wants to entertain the reader, while the essayist has been to graduate school.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The high school I attended was named the Cathedral Preparatory School for Young Catholic Boys. It was a prep school, preparing us for one of two futures: either playing football or spending our lives getting sucker-punched by those who did play football.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,