Dinty W. Moore > Quotes

“Not all writing is political or revolutionary, but the very act of giving yourself permission to write, to speak, to share the truth no matter whether the truth you understand is the truth others want to acknowledge, is brave, powerful, and important.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life

“Exercise the muscles that compassionately open the heart.

In your writing and your life.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life

“Words will never fully capture what is alive in our hearts.

It would be a shame, though, if we denied our bears their dancing.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life

“A lesson is learned. It is easier, more efficient, to chop onions when you are only chopping onions, not conversing, checking up on the rest of the kitchen, answering the phone, flirting with the young lady scouring the coffeepot, or whatever.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style

“We are rushing, always thinking of the future, of our destination, focusing on what is four hours, or four hundred miles, or four years ahead, and constantly missing what is right there, just then, at the moment.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style

“The idea that students don't know how to write clearly and precisely is as old as school itself, probably, but lately it seems as if students no longer know how to read either. It is true on my campus and from I can gather, on many other college campuses. The students understand words, sentences -- they are not illiterate -- but they don't seem to grasp the reasons for reading. They seem baffled when asked to take two thoughts, connect them, and form something new. They read James Baldwin or Henry David Thoreau and their primary reaction seems to be, "Okay, now I've ready that. I'm done." As if the only goal in reading was to have looked at every word.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals

“The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. —THOMAS PAINE”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Cars, with their air conditioning, windows, sound systems, and great speed, keep us isolated from our environment...

"Self-propulsion," such as biking, walking, canoeing, puts us in touch with the land below and the world around us.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style

“viridian”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers

“But if we don't prefer things, then we increase our chances to be content.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style

“When we are chopping onions, we should be chopping onions only, right there, right then, at the chopping board, as if the onions, the knife, and our hands were all that existed.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style

“What are minnows but brief flashes? And what are thoughts? And how do you capture a brief flash, even for a second?”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life

“The writer of nonfiction might be starting with events that really happened, but recreating them is an imaginative feat. Ordering them is an imaginative feat. Making sense of them is an imaginative feat.” —Robin Hemley”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Michel de Montaigne, a highly-educated French nobleman who retired from public duties and retreated to his family’s castle around 1570 to focus on his writing, is”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers

“if you begin to obsess day and night over the best ways to gain the attention of a well-placed literary agent, stop writing MEMOIR and call your doctor right away. Also tell your doctor about any history of SHORT FICTION or POETICS. Do not write MEMOIR if you have had serious allergic or skin reactions after bathing in bourbon. The most common side effects of MEMOIR include nausea, sleep problems, constipation, gas, and swelling of the navel. If you have side effects that bother you or don’t go away, tell your doctor promptly. He likely won’t care one bit. He is working on his memoir.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Joan Didion, one of the finest essayists ever to put neuroses to paper, once said: “I write to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“My job is not to just set down events that happened to me. My job is to create an experience for a reader.” —Mary Karr”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Those are serious questions. Let me avoid them as best I can.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The difference between a story and an essay is that the storyteller just wants to entertain the reader, while the essayist has been to graduate school.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The writer of a personal essay does not begin with an idea and then struggle to prove her point; she investigates, keeps an open mind, goes wherever the thought may lead, and, in fact, may end the essay having still not reached a final conclusion.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Crafting the Personal Essay

“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused.…Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” —George Saunders”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” —JOAN DIDION”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Story Cure: A Book Doctor's Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir

“why people tell stories, and why we listen to the good ones with such rapt attention. Stories revive us, challenge us, startle us, and offer us new ways to reflect upon our world and the moment’s most perplexing questions. All of this, by the way, is every bit as true of the memoir as it is of the novel.”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Story Cure: A Book Doctor's Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir

“Your memory rope may not contain a precise, photographic accounting of past events, because those moments become lost within seconds of anything that occurs. But still, your honest (if not accurate) memories will be attached to those knots, and those honest memories—along with reflection, examination, reconsideration—are precisely what the memoirist has to offer.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“Mister Sensei Essay Writer Guy opens his eyes momentarily, smiles, and says, “When you are not writing, be thoroughly not writing; when you are writing, be writing through and through.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“The high school I attended was named the Cathedral Preparatory School for Young Catholic Boys. It was a prep school, preparing us for one of two futures: either playing football or spending our lives getting sucker-punched by those who did play football.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,

“subjectivity”
― Dinty W. Moore, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers

“Memory is like a rope, knotted every three or four feet, and hanging down a deep well. When you pull it up, just about anything might be attached to those knots. But you’ll never know what’s there if you don’t pull. And the more you pull at that rope, the more you find.”
― Dinty W. Moore, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Awkward Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals,