A Quote by Phillip Lopate

You must read a lot of personal essays - you needn't reinvent the wheel.

Phillip Lopate

Quote Topics

Essays Lot Must Personal Personal Essays Read Reinvent Reinvent The Wheel Wheel

Quote Author

Phillip Lopate
American - Critic
Born: November 16, 1943

It is bad enough to reinvent the wheel. What really hurts is when they reinvent the flat tire.

Lee S Shulman

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

Joyce Carol Oates

It takes courage to reinvent joys, to reinvent opportunities, to reinvent dreams, to reinvent connections, to reinvent hopes that you have set aside.

Mary Anne Radmacher

I think that the Internet is really cool because a lot of young feminists don't feel like they have to reinvent the wheel.

Kathleen Hanna

In the old days, you would chastise people for reinventing the wheel. Now we beg, 'Oh, please, please reinvent the wheel.'

Alan Kay

When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.

Dani Shapiro

Because of social media, we have a lot of personal essays floating around; you see them on Facebook: everyone's either reading them or writing them. Some of them are great; some of them are diary entries put forth as essays.

Meghan Daum

The greatest thing about form and convention is that it saves you from having to reinvent the wheel. Now, whether you mount the wheel to a horse carriage or a Formula One racing car, make it plain or give it spinning rims, those are all craft decisions. But the fact of the wheel remains: it will turn if you set it down. That's what I mean about the beauty of the gifts genre can offer.

Chris Abani

Ordering is very important with essays, even if a reader doesn't read the essays or the poems in order through the book...

Pattiann Rogers

When I was in graduate school, my thesis included both poetry and essays. Influenced by the personal essays of James Baldwin and Norman Mailer, I loved the form, but pretty much stopped.

Stephen Vincent Benet

I enjoy writing personal essays in the way of Charles Lamb because it goes back to the school days when I was good in writing essays.

Ruskin Bond

Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer, nor do I tend to gravitate to them as a reader.

Dani Shapiro

Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it.

Anthony J. D'Angelo

I wanted to create an environment in which more than just personal essays could be represented, and in which stranger approaches to making essays could be celebrated.