#memoir

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

— William J. Clinton

#hope #i #interesting #lot #memoirs

I knew that I had to write my memoirs. ↗

— Jane Fonda

#i #knew #memoirs #write

When I was about nine, my siblings and I fell out of our moving van at an intersection. My dad didn’t notice for about five blocks. It was back before seat belts. It was also back before parents used any sort of common sense whatsoever. It was a time when you didn’t raise your children. You just fed them and they got bigger. ↗

— Dina Kucera

#growing-up #memoir #family

I will leave no memoirs. ↗

— Comte de Lautreamont

#leave #memoirs #will

In a memoir, I think, the contract implies a certain degree of truth. I think you have to be as true to your memory and your experience as you possibly can. ↗

— David Leavitt

#certain degree #contract #degree #experience #i

My only fantasy about writing was that in my old days, after directing many masterpieces, I would write my memoirs. ↗

— Manuel Puig

#after #days #directing #fantasy #i

I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book. ↗

— Gloria Swanson

#book #divorce #far #given #i

Memory for most is a kind of afterlife; for my mother, it is another form of life. ↗

— Fern Schumer Chapman

#memoir #memory #mother #life

Brighton Beach does not look, smell, or sound like Russia. It's a parody of Russia at best, something as different from the real thing as a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, they sell Russian food on Brighton Beach, and Russian books and videos, and Russian clothes, and there are Russian restaurants and Russian nightclubs, and everybody speaks Russian, but the Russianness of the place is so concentrated that it feels ridiculously exaggerated. Everything Russian on Brighton Beach is too Russian, far more Russian than in real Russia. This is what happens all over Brooklyn. From the Scandinavians of Bay Ridge to the Chinese of Sunset Park, Brooklyn's immigrants go to ridiculous extremes to re-create their homelands only to end up with a vulgar pastiche. ↗

— Lara Vapnyar

#brooklyn-was-mine #essays #memoirs #food

I may not be able to make a horse drink, but it is my duty to lead it to water. ↗

— Conrad Taylor

#inspirational