Essayist Quotes

The essayist has to follow a certain intellectual pattern. The novelist has the advantage of using fantasy, of being subjective. - Manuel Puig

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. - Jose Saramago

I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist. - Jose Saramago

Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers. - Leo Rosten

As an essayist I don't believe in the fiction of an anonymous observer. Rather than the sham of objectivity, I think you should put you perspective up front. That's only fair to the reader. - Ralph Wiley

An essayist is a lucky person who has found a way to discourse without being interrupted. - Charles Poore