Memoir Quotes - Page 9

• The memoir was a very personal book. I wrote it as a personal journey and search about who my father was and how my family had come together and come apart - sorting all that out, you know, issues of personal identity.

  Barack Obama

  Father, Book, Journey

  4 Copy quote

• It was fascinating what a total interest he [John F. Kennedy] had in his tradecraft of being a politician. I didn't realize before that he was working on his memoirs all along, how he ran for Congress, that sort of thing.

  Chris Matthews

  Realizing, Politician, Congress

  4 Copy quote

• I'm not into this memoir craze that's been going on for 20 years now and doesn't seem to ever let up. People just indiscriminately say "memoir" now when it's a person writing about their own life.

  Richard Hell

  Writing, Years, People

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well, I'd like to think I am, and I'd also like to think that we're all having a lot more fun getting older than we pretend. It was interesting to me when I first started working on this book that I'd mentioned that I was writing a memoir about aging and everybody would moan and groan and carry on.

  Anna Quindlen

  Fun, Book, Writing

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I remember when I was writing my memoir and I was worried about what other people would think when they read it, and my mother, who can be this incredibly wise person, said that it really didn't matter because strangers who read it would never meet me anyway, and people I knew were aware of my secrets.

  Katy Lederer

  Wise, Mother, Writing

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I admire Joyce Maynard a lot, specifically her memoir "At Home in the World." Her writing is beautiful and fascinating and seemed to give me validation to the idea that I could write validly in earnest about my life with (my) very feminine point of view, and also that I could unapologetically explore the bad traits of my character (which I find to be more interesting to explore than the good traits), as well as explore other concepts that interest me like private vs public personas, age gap relationships, etc.

  Marie Calloway

  Beautiful, Home, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a writer, I was deliberately creating an alternate world, and then populating it with experiences and people that I knew in this world, but I'd shake up the mix considerably. And about the same time that the memoir was becoming the dominant popular literary form in the mid to late 90s, I started reading writers who were deliberately playing with the notion of "truth" and "fiction" - that struck me as a much more interesting way to tell certain stories, particularly in the realm of comedy.

  Kevin Keck

  Reading, Creating, People

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't like that word [memoir]. Whenever my publishers have wanted to use it, I've told them to take it away.

  Paul Auster

  Use, Wanted, Publishers

  Interview with Nathalie Cochoy, Sophie Vallas, transatlantica.revues.org. March 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I’ve always liked to read about extremely wealthy people, especially when they are crazy (like Howard Hughes or Caligula.) While writing this book I did a lot of fun research on robber barons like Rockefeller and Morgan. But the most helpful stuff came from studying royal families and mad emperors. The best book I read was probably A King’s Own Story, which is the memoir of Edward VIII. Also, anything about Ivan the Terrible or Ted Turner.

  Simon Rich

  Kings, Fun, Crazy

  "Ridiculously Rich: The Rumpus Interview With Simon Rich". Interview with Maureen Miller, therumpus.net. June 9, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of my big inspirations was Céleste Mogador. She was a courtesan who wrote her memoirs in order to pay off her debts, which is a hilarious gesture.

  Alexander Chee

  Inspiration, Order, Debt

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I would never do a printed memoir. I've been asked to publish a memoir from years by different publishers and literary agents. I think it wouldn't be great for me because all I'd really want to talk about it music and I'd rather just play it.

  Natalie Merchant

  Thinking, Years, Play

  "Paradise Is Here: An Interview With Natalie Merchant". Interview with Gregg Shapiro, livingoutli.org. April 19, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• By calling it a memoir, I meant is as a collection of memories. I thought it was (a more) artful (title) than documentary.

  Natalie Merchant

  Memories, Titles, Calling

  "Paradise is here: an interview with Natalie Merchant". Interview with Gregg Shapiro, livingoutli.org. April 19, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There has never been a book like this. At once a poetics of place, a work of deep history, a bildungsroman, and an acute inquiry into the big subjects: love, family, other animals, the nature of creativity. It is sublime. It's also very funny. Haunting and haunted, Hold Still is the memoir of an artist that is art itself.

  Melissa Holbrook Pierson

  Art, Book, Creativity

  4 Copy quote

• And in the same way, FDR's not much of a father. Although the children in all their memoirs really talk about what a fun-loving guy Dad was, and how brooding and unhappy Mom was. The children sort of blame it all on the mother. Well, this is kind of standard and typical, and aggrieved Eleanor Roosevelt that she was not a happier mother. She wanted to be a happier mother. And I must say, she was a happier grandmother.

  Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Mom, Mother, Children

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I didn't find this memoir of these two eccentric people so different from doing my memoirs of De Sade or Simone Weil. My parents in their own way are as odd as Sade.

  Francine du Plessix Gray

  Two, People, Parent

  "Conversation: Francine du Plessix Gray and Sean Wilsey". Interview with Boris Kachka, nymag.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• As to why people like Joseph Lelyveld are writing memoirs, I think they're just catching on the coattails of the trend.

  Francine du Plessix Gray

  Writing, Thinking, Catching On

  "Conversation: Francine du Plessix Gray and Sean Wilsey". Interview with Boris Kachka, nymag.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In memoir, can you really tell the truth about yourself? You're not going to write about your little peccadilloes, like, "I like a finger in my ass during sex." Or whatever it is. You're not going to come out in typical everyday conversation and say that. That's something that's going to be only for a select few.

  Scott McClanahan

  Sex, Writing, Everyday

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Cancer, Months, Fourteen

  "The Writing Life". Interview with Mark Matousek, www.psychologytoday.com. July 19, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you read history, right, if you read [Mikhail] Gorbachev's memoirs, Gorbachev memoirs said the key thing in winning the Cold War was our insistence on nuclear defense, because they knew they couldn't match us.

  Rudy Giuliani

  War, Winning, Keys

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [John Carlos] has spent much of his life since that time as a dedicated human rights advocate and public speaker, and he is out now with a wonderful new text; a memoir, in fact.

  Tavis Smiley

  Rights, Facts, Wonderful

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was a compromise. There was a sense that I could write my own memoirs, and Larry [Grobel] would help me down the line, or maybe not, maybe he was too close to me.

  Al Pacino

  Writing, Lines, Helping

  Source: www.rawkblog.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I didn't want the book [of memoirs] out, naturally - Larry [Grobel] knew that for 20 years, 15 at least, I didn't want anything written about me. Then, you know, things happen, finally it's OK and I trust Larry. Nothing about it is salacious in any way.

  Al Pacino

  Book, Years, Want

  Source: www.rawkblog.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was inspired by my life. I was inspired by the lives of many women doctors around me. So [Memoirs of a Woman Doctor ] is a mixture.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Doctors, Mixtures, Inspired

  Source: muse.jhu.edu

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't believe that fiction is dead. I know there are some people who believe that it's an outdated art form, and that to express truth today you need to work in different forms, to write books where it's perhaps not clear what's fiction and what's memoir. I have nothing against those books and love many of them very much. But we have enough space for everyone, traditional realists and hybrid writers, and experimental writers all.

  Lauren Groff

  Art, Believe, Book

  4 Copy quote

• People like [Memoirs of a Woman Doctor], whether young people, young women, even critics - male critics - they were not shocked by it. Of course, some parts were cut.

  Nawal El Saadawi

  Cutting, Doctors, People

  Source: muse.jhu.edu

  4 Copy quote

  Show source