Quotes by John D'Agata

John D'Agata

A risk is something that feels risky to the person who’s taking it.

Feels

Persons

Risk

As a student at the time, I kind of felt like my only options as a nonfiction writer were to either jump on the personal essay bus or linger back at the station, hoping that some other heretofore unknown mode of transportation was going to magically show up to take me where I wanted to go.

Kind

Nonfiction

Students

As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I thought I wanted.

Figures

Grad

School

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.

Fiction

Ideas

Thinking

I felt a little lost as a student. At Iowa, I felt as if I had gotten into this program that was going to save me, and so I moved myself across the country for grad school and yet still didn’t have a home. It was upsetting. And I know that’s a common feeling.

Country

Home

School

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.

Country

Frustration

Pain

I like Plutarch because I’ve read him forever, and I know that he’s incredibly funky, even though his mainstream image is as Mr. Unfunky.

Forever

Funky

Mainstream

I think that in a lot of readers’ minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art.

Art

Mind

Thinking

I thought that I wasn’t an essayist because I just didn’t see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That’s why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

Grad

Program

School

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.

Environment

Stranger

Wanted

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Art

Artist

Beautiful

Book

Borders

Community

Country

Ends

Environment

Essays

Facts

Fate

Feels

Fiction

Figures

Forever

Form

Frustration

Fun

Funky

Grad

Helping

Home

Ideas

Intimate

Kind

Known

Library

Literature

Mainstream

May

Mind

Movement

Needs

Nonfiction

Obsession

Order

Pain

Peers

People

Persons

Perspective

Philosophical

Powerful

Program

Risk

Rome

School

Should Have

Sometimes

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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The Autobiography

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The Behaviour Diary

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Quotes by John D'Agata

John D'Agata

A risk is something that feels risky to the person who’s taking it.

As a student at the time, I kind of felt like my only options as a nonfiction writer were to either jump on the personal essay bus or linger back at the station, hoping that some other heretofore unknown mode of transportation was going to magically show up to take me where I wanted to go.

As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I thought I wanted.

I felt a little lost as a student. At Iowa, I felt as if I had gotten into this program that was going to save me, and so I moved myself across the country for grad school and yet still didn’t have a home. It was upsetting. And I know that’s a common feeling.

I like Plutarch because I’ve read him forever, and I know that he’s incredibly funky, even though his mainstream image is as Mr. Unfunky.

I think that in a lot of readers’ minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art.

I thought that I wasn’t an essayist because I just didn’t see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That’s why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

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.

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Topics by John D’Agata

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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