Autobiographical Essay Quotes & Sayings

I will say only that all a writer has to work with is the material he has gathered as the result of his own endeavor and observations, and he cannot be denied the right to use it. Condemn, but not deny. — Truman Capote

More people saying what they believe would be a great improvement. Because I often do I am unfit for common intercourse.-Nero Wolfe in Blood Will Tell — Rex Stout

Attempting to express a person's objective reality and subjective state of mind with the written word is an endless task because writing alters our perception of reality and amends our mental equilibrium. — Kilroy J. Oldster

'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime ... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics. — Ian McKellen

We live and die, but we are made of immortal stuff. The carbon atoms in our fingernails, the calcium atoms in our bones, the iron atoms in our blood - all of the countless trillions of atoms of which we are made - are ancient objects. They existed before us, before the Earth itself, in fact. And after each of us dies, they will depart from our bodies and do other things. Forever. — Keith Heyer Meldahl

I believe that almost all important, useful ideas are simple. Peter Whittle has recently put it nicely in an autobiographical essay. "If a piece of work is heavy and complicated then it is wrong." ... Some writers feel that to express their ideas in simple terms is degrading. Some use complexity to disguise the paucity of their material. In fact, simplicity is a virtue and when, as here, it is both original and useful, it can represent a real advance in knowledge. — Dennis Lindley

In an autobiographical essay published in 1946, Albert Einstein reflected on his days as a student of physics some fifty years earlier. He recalled his teachers with affection but, referring to exams, said, This coercion had such a deterring effect that after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year. — Alfie Kohn

When you're editor-in-chief of a big magazine, you cannot be a cover girl for MAC; you cannot be the face of Givenchy - of course you can't; it's doesn't go with the job. — Carine Roitfeld

Autobiographical writing stands as lasting memorial for enduring the travails of an earthly life. Writing is an apt technique to score our storyline into the annuals of time. To endure a mortal life is merely a transitory experience whereas writing about how one lived is an internalized exposition of what it means to be human. Writing is an external exhibition injecting the author into the world's consciousness. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I don't care who you are. When you sit down to write the first page of your screenplay, in your head, you're also writing your Oscar acceptance speech. — Nora Ephron