Jose Saramago
Writer
"In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how to write essays."
Essays quotes
Essays
20 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Zadie Smith
Novelist, Essayist
"I read Carver. Julio Cortázar. Amis's essays. Baldwin. Lorrie Moore. Capote. Saramago. Larkin. Wodehouse. Anything, anything at all, that doesn't sound like me."
Chelsea Martin
Artist
"I didn't really have a major role in how it was described. I wanted it to be a collection of essays where each storyline could be contained."
Chelsea Martin
Artist
"The last time I was asked that, I said "A Year Without Spoons." Normally you get asked the same questions over and over, so it feels boring to say the same thing. But then I was like, I don't even know another essay I like. They're all good."
"I'm always trying to bring as many poetic properties as possible to the essay without making it too overburdened."
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Topics related to Essays
Browse quotes that often appear alongside essays — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Essays quotes
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"There is no room for the impurities of literature in an essay."
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"Many good poets are really essayists who write very short essays."
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"I am a bad reporter because everything seems to me worth reporting; and a bad reviewer because every sentence in every book suggests a separate essay."
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