The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “joan didion”

E.B. White on the Art of the Essay and Why Egotism Is Essential for the Essay Writer
E.B. White on the Art of the Essay and Why Egotism Is Essential for the Essay Writer

“Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”

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Susan Orlean on Writing
Susan Orlean on Writing

“You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.”

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Mary Gordon on the Joy of Notebooks and How Writing by Hand Catalyzes Creativity
Mary Gordon on the Joy of Notebooks and How Writing by Hand Catalyzes Creativity

“However thoroughly we lose ourselves in the vortex of our invention, we inhabit a corporeal world.”

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What Makes a Great Essay?
What Makes a Great Essay?

“The things that are most lasting and edifying are the things that lodge in the brain most deeply, which means they are emotional, enjoyable, and fun.”

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Virginia Woolf on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diary
Virginia Woolf on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Diary

“The habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.”

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Joy Williams’s Daily Writing Routine
Joy Williams’s Daily Writing Routine

“…all messages which will fuel the morrow’s pages coming to me in friendly and artful dreams…”

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Cultural Icons on Criticism
Cultural Icons on Criticism

Twain, Sontag, Bradbury, Hitchens, Didion, and more.

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Order to the Chaos of Life: Isabel Allende on Writing
Order to the Chaos of Life: Isabel Allende on Writing

“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

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Why We Write: Mary Karr on the Magnetism and Madness of the Written Word
Why We Write: Mary Karr on the Magnetism and Madness of the Written Word

“Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver.”

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The Best of Brain Pickings 2012
The Best of Brain Pickings 2012

Everything you missed and everything you’d want to revisit, in one place.

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