Quotessence
Home / Authors / John D'Agata
John D'Agata

John D'Agata Quotes

Essayist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEssaysGenreThinkingWantIfsSchoolNonfictionPeopleStillsForm

Famous John D'Agata Quotes

“I get emails from students at programs all over the country who want to transfer to Iowa, and in most cases their frustrations have absolutely nothing to do with the programs they're attending. They have to do with the growing pains that they're undergoing as writers and with the growing pains that our own genre is constantly undergoing.”

WantCountryPainCasesGrowingStudentsProgramGenreFrustrationEmailTransfersAbsolutely NothingAttendingIowaGrowing PainsGenre Is
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“Back in the day, a lot of our instructors in nonfiction were actually fiction scholars. So they would bring in stories as models for the essay. And in some ways that's a good idea, because we can all learn from other genres. But I think it also made me realize that I literally didn't have an essay model, and that if I wanted one I would have to find it.”

IfsThinkingWayMadeIdeasStoriesWantedRealizingFictionModelsGenreGood IdeasNonfictionScholarEssaysInstructorsBack In The Day
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“I would ask the people who were generous toward my own work. After class one day a poetry professor said to me, "Hey, there's this guy Basho you would find interesting," and so I found Basho. A fiction teacher told me, "You ought to read Clarice Lispector if you're interested in that sort of in-between stuff," and then Lispector appeared. It's not magic. You just keep your eyes open.”

PeopleIfsSaidEyeGuyAsksFoundStuffMy OwnInterestingFictionClassTeacherMagicOughtOne DayHeyGenerousProfessorsThis Guy
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“The essay community should have hundreds of anthologies from hundreds of different perspectives that are constantly introducing us to new writers, new work, and new visions for our genre. The whole spirit of these anthologies is that there should never be a last word in how essays are interpreted or what they can be.”

ShouldDifferentWholeLastsSpiritCommunityVisionPerspectiveShould HaveGenreIntroducingEssaysLast WordsDifferent PerspectiveAnthologyNew WorkNew Vision
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“The best stuff that Cicero wrote, in the first century in Rome, were the Philippics, a series of speeches that he delivered against Marc Antony, whom he thought was irreparably dismantling the Republic of Rome. Those speeches are powerful because they're not only really pointed but they're thrillingly beautiful - and that's precisely what made them dangerous: the fact that people wanted to read them.”

PeopleFirstsMadeFactsWantedBeautifulStuffPowerfulCenturyDangerousSpeechSeriesRepublicRomeAntony
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“Of course it's possible for political essays to be artful. I just want to call into question the dominance of content over form in the history of the essay. I want us to recognize that there's art involved in making this stuff, because we still don't approach the constructed nature of the essay with the same appreciation that we do poetry or fiction.”

WantArtStillsFormPoliticalCoursesStuffFictionInvolvedApproachAppreciationEssaysWant UDominance
Author:John D'Agata
Create image

“When I'm teaching, I'm not really doing my job if the student who's always comfortable doing wacko stuff all over the page keeps getting gold stars from me for doing wacko stuff all over the page. A riskier assignment for that student, who might be used to hiding behind a lot of formal armor, would be to try to do something straightforward, traditionally, in which they are much more directly laid bare for the reader.”

IfsTryingMightWould BeJobsUsedStarsStuffBehindsTeachingStudentsReaderComfortablePagesGoldHidingFormalStraightforwardArmorAssignments
Author:John D'Agata
Create image