Quotes About Memoir

There's a lot of material from my life in my books, but they're not really autobiographical, in the sense that they're not about my life. So, in 'A Feather on the Breath of God' I write about my parents, I write about this Russian immigrant, I write about the world of dance, but it isn't an autobiography; so much is left out.

Bernie Chowdhury

There is the who they thought they were and the who they wrote down, the something lost and the something gained, the discrepancy, now easily measured, between the voice they hear in their heads and the voice they find on their paper. "Our notebooks give us away," Joan Didion observes. And they do. They also provide, to memoir makers, a shelf and a foundation,

Teaching memoir is teaching vulnerability is teaching voice is teaching self.

But alone with my prose I am maker and critic, teacher and student, lazy and specific. Alone with my prose I fail for days and sometimes years and over the course of many drafts. Incapable of finding the truth in memoir, I turn to fiction. Paralyzed by length, I turn to poems. Bucking against short lines I turn to prose again, to truth again, to nonsequential truth because that seems more truthful.

Memoir is the life wanting to be transformed. It is the life we have been waiting for.

memoir is the life we have been waiting for.

Reagan will later write

Many are convinced that the Second World War will be the war to end all wars, but Patton knows better. As a reminder to himself that war is inevitable, he has been reading Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars each night before bed. The memoir recounts Caesar's battles in Gaul4 and Germany from 58 to 51 BC. The words rise up off the page for Patton, and he feels a personal connection to the action.

Skorzeny recounts his escapades in

autobiography, he claimed

Skibosh ended up writing a memoir and calling it, If You Wanna Have Fun, Go Someplace Else

A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons.

When it was suggested that I write a memoir I said, 'I'm not old enough. I'm not distinguished enough.' But I went home and sat down to write, and the material for the book just came flooding into my hands.

There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized.

I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody. I'm a comedian and a writer.

A hidden nerve is what every writer is ultimately about. It's what all writers wish to uncover when writing about themselves in this age of the personal memoir. And yet it's also the first thing every writer learns to sidestep, to disguise, as though this nerve were a deep and shameful secret that needs to be swathed in many sheaths.

A lot of writers dwell on their relationships with their mothers, but only a few are worth reading.

It was a long time ago: 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt. It was a great story that was lasting, and I loved it so much. I also love Nora Ephron. I gobble up everything she writes. Also, I love Anthony Bourdain, very irreverent and funny.

Most memoir writers will tell you that the hardest part of writing a memoir isn't what to include, but what to leave out.

Writing a memoir begins a process that doesn't necessarily end with publication. You begin to think about family life and stories and relationships, and those are ongoing.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing a memoir is finding your own voice, and you should be very careful about being influenced by someone else's voice.

Charles Blow's memoir 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones' was a breathtaking piece of writing.

Popeye the Sailor Man has more cultural longevity. Only women and poofs read or write now. Otherwise, these days, no sooner has someone been sodomised by a close relative than they think they can write a memoir. The game's up.