Memoir Quotes - Page 17

• I do think that memoirs by women are reviewed differently and considered somewhat outside of the canon.

  Kate Zambreno

  Thinking, Canon

  Source: therumpus.net

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The memoir by women, read by female readers, is considered a market form, not "great literature."

  Kate Zambreno

  Female, Literature, Form

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The nonfiction novel or literary memoir as authored by women is usually given a much harder time in mainstream criticism.

  Kate Zambreno

  Criticism, Nonfiction, Mainstream

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I guess that my opinion of writing about real people is informed by defenses of Joyce Maynard's memoir, that the experiences were a part of my life as well, and that I have the right to write about my life.

  Marie Calloway

  Real, Writing, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Anyone who tries to write a memoir needs to keep in mind that what's interesting to you isn't necessarily interesting to a reader.

  Mitch Albom

  Writing, Interesting, Mind

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

  William J. Clinton

  Hope, Self, Interesting

  7 Copy quote

• There is a lot of scepticism today as to whether memoir is real. But when fiction is done at a certain level there is scepticism as to whether it is really fiction.

  Junot Diaz

  Real, Fiction, Done

  "Junot Díaz: a life in books". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. August 31, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold.

  Mary Karr

  Character, Emotional, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• I'm not about to write my memoirs. Not for a long time.

  John Major

  Writing, Long, Long Time

  4 Copy quote

• The great thing about being a print journalist is that you are permitted to duck. Cameramen get killed while the writers are flat on the floor. A war correspondent for the BBC dedicated his memoir to 50 fallen colleagues, and I guarantee you they were all taking pictures. I am only alive because I am such a chicken.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  War, Ducks, Guarantees

  4 Copy quote

• My grandmother could never have written a memoir, so 'The Gravedigger's Daughter' is a homage to her life, and to the lives of other young women of her generation, which are so rarely articulated.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Daughter, Grandmother, Generations

  5 Copy quote

• When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do.

  Conor Oberst

  Song, Writing, Goal

  8 Copy quote

• Someone asked me if I was afraid to write my memoirs. I told him: 'We have to stop drawing up accounts of fear! We live in a society in which people are allowed to tell their story, and that is what I do.'

  Salman Rushdie

  Writing, Drawing, People

  4 Copy quote

• For me, the showbiz memoir is uninteresting - you want to tell people something they don't know about.

  Alexei Sayle

  People, Want, Knows

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". labs.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'd written Smashed not because I was ambitious and not because writing down my feelings was cathartic (it felt more like playing one's own neurosurgeon sans anesthesia). No. I'd made a habit--and eventually a profession--of memoir because I hail from one of those families where shows of emotions are discouraged.

  Koren Zailckas

  Writing, Feelings, Ambitious

  9 Copy quote

• There is a physics to the world, which non-fiction has a contract to stand in awe of, otherwise it becomes completely self-centered and ego-driven, which is the death of a memoir.

  Nick Flynn

  Self, Ego, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• From the essay "Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again" 1. Journalists sometimes make things up. 2. Journalists sometimes get things wrong. 3. Almost all books that are published as memoirs were initially written as novels, and then the agent/editor said, This might work better as a memoir. 6. Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.

  Nora Ephron

  Book, Men, Editors

  8 Copy quote

• Someday," Magnus said, looking at the crumpled royal person at his feet, "I must write my memoirs.

  Cassandra Clare

  Writing, Feet, Royal

  Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson (2015). “The Bane Chronicles”, p.89, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you always dreamed of writing a novel or a memoir, and you used to love to write, and were pretty good at it, will it break your heart if it turns out you never got around to it? If you wake up one day at eighty, will you feel nonchalant that something always took precedence over a daily commitment to discovering your creative spirit? If not--if this very thought fills you with regret--then what are you waiting for?

  Anne Lamott

  Regret, Writing, Heart

  20 Copy quote

• Whatever shall we do in that remote spot? Well, we will write our memoirs. Work is the scythe of time.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Time, Writing, Army

  Napoleon Bonaparte (2010). “The Corsican: The Virtual Diary of Napoleon Bonaparte”, p.370, Fireship Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only good grades I ever got in school before I was kicked out were for creative writing. I thought that fiction might be in my future but then my career took a different path once the Beatles showed me what a blast being in a band could be. Writing my memoir Late, Late at Night reminded me how much I love the craft. So I decided to give fiction a shot again.Magnificent Vibration is the result. I’m still not quite sure where it came from, but once I got going, it practically wrote itself. I’ve heard writers I admire speak of that phenomenon, so maybe I’m on the right track.

  Rick Springfield

  Writing, School, Night

  4 Copy quote

• I'm surprised how often I'm asked about being a man with a woman narrator. I'm not the first, nor will I be the last. It's been done forever, but we seem to forget that. The whole notion of "write what you know" is not just boring, but wrong. Lately it seems like every novel has to be a memoir. I'm a boring person, but I'm a writer with a relatively vivid imagination. And when people ask me about how I find the voice of a woman, I tell them that my life is run by women.

  Rabih Alameddine

  Running, Writing, Men

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have been presented with roles with demand not just a physical ability but mental disciplines as well. 'Memoirs of a Geisha' was not so much about physical exertion...it was much more graceful and contained than that.

  Michelle Yeoh

  Discipline, Roles, Demand

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• My Family and Other Saints echoes Gerald Durrell's classic memoir, My Family and Other Animals, not only in its title, but in its wonderful humor and lyrical prose. Like Durrell, Kirin Narayan takes the reader to a fascinating world far from our own, and brings to life its myriad sights, sounds and smells, while revealing the profound cultural beliefs of its people. India is just the most complex character among a cast of characters-family members, gurus, hippies, and neighbors-all of whom I now count as old friends.

  Judith Barrington

  Hippie, Character, Animal

  5 Copy quote

• I've just finished my next collection, Possible Side Effects, and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.

  Augusten Burroughs

  Father, Holiday, Two Sides

  7 Copy quote