#memoir

Have you ever gotten to a point where you looked at your own life, thought "Fu** this," and reached for the economy-sized Valium? Ah, suicide. So dark and seductive. ↗

— Rebecca O'Donnell

#addiction #hope #memoir #suicide #life

It has always been on the written page that the world has come into focus for me. If I can piece all these bits of memory together with the diaries and letters and the scribbled thoughts that clutter my mind and bookshelves, then maybe I can explain what happened. Maybe the worlds I have inhabited for the past seven years will assume order and logic and wholeness on paper. Maybe I can tell my story in a way that is useful to someone else. ↗

— Nancy Horan

#life-story #memoir #writing #life

… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again. ↗

— Amos Oz

#love

People think that because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. ↗

— Anthony Powell

#biography #cannot #case #circumstance #conceivable

It's the only way anything will change. Because we are both mother and child, cause and effect, villain and victim ↗

— Jason Najum

#culture-critique #essay #humor #inspirational #memoir

Listen: I don't have anything against autobiographies, so long as the writer has a penis that's twelve inches long when erect. So long as the writer is a woman who was once a whore and is moderately wealthy in her old age. ↗

— Roberto Bolaño

#memoir #age

Negative self talk costs more than even the richest person can afford. So be nice to yourself whenever possible … and know that it is always possible. ↗

— Doug Pedersen

#memoir #quotes-by-doug-pedersen #tuna-breath #age

Work hard. "Suit yourself, then you'll know at least one person is pleased. ↗

— Carole Estrup

#child-abuse #healing-the-past #memoir #art

Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent. ↗

— Steve Martin

#celebrity-memoir #creativity #creativity-and-attitude #memoir #perseverance