“We don’t choose our stories. Our stories choose us, and if we don’t write them, if we ignore them, we are somehow diminished. But at the same time, I don’t feel that being a writer gives any of us the right to just let it rip. To disregard the feelings of the people surrounding us. So I take care. P…”— Honor Moore, danishapiro.com
“What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.”— Beth Kephart, amazon.com
“Do you know, yet, what you're writing about? Do you know what is at stake?”— Beth Kephart, amazon.com
“One who writes memoir wishes to step into that light, not to see one's own face—that is not possible—but to feel the length of shadow cast by the night.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“True memoir is written, like all literature, in an attempt to find not only a self but a world.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“If we learn not only to tell our stories but to listen to what our stories tell us—to write the first draft and then return for the second draft—we are doing the work of memory.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“For meaning is not "attached" to the detail by the memoirist; meaning is revealed.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“Seeking the congruence between stored image and hidden emotion—that's the real job of memoir.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“My narrative self (the culprit who invented) wishes to be discovered by my reflective self, the self who wants to understand and make sense of half-remembered moment.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“Memory seeks a permanent home for feeling and image, a habitation where they can live together.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“Intimacy with a piece of writing, as with a person, comes from paying attention to the revelations it is capable of giving, not by imposing my own notions and agenda, no matter how well intentioned they might be.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“The experience was simply there, like a book that has always been on the shelf, whether I ever read it or not, the binding and the title showing as I skim across the contents of my life.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com