Inspirational Memoir Quotes & Sayings

It is not a crime to commit First Degree Writing — Temple Emmet Williams

Remember to add the most important ingredient to every recipe you make - your love! — Diana Silva

I ain't never saw a hearse with a luggage rack." (Quote by George Strait, country singer, and appearing at the end of Bob Mitchell's memoir, Time for a Heart-to-Heart: Reflections on Life in the Face of Death. — George Strait

I name you today, heart fears. I am small, but you are smaller. You will not stop me. You have a voice, fears, and I must listen, but then I will open my heart. I will love you right to death. — Anna White

The children we bring into the world are small replicas of ourselves and our husbands; the pride and joy of grandfathers and grandmothers. We dream of being mothers, and for most of us that dreams are realised naturally. For this is the Miracle of Life. — Azelene Williams

If you want self-esteem." "Do estimable acts" ~ V, from A Piece of Cake: Memoir — Cupcake Brown

It isn't enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives. For what happened in the story to transcend the limits of the personal, it must be driven by the engine of what the story means. — Cheryl Strayed

Who thought up the dumb idea to arrange the memoir section in the bookstore by subject? — Slash Coleman

If variety is the spice of life, then my life must be one of the spiciest you ever heard of. A curry of a life. -Paul Child — Julia Child

I looked out again at the rising moon and I let the weight of my day, my week, lift away with the rushing wind as I was blown into the depths of myself. — Gerry Abbey

Her legacy was not--would not be--this disease. Phyllis Marie Unold Avery told us stories...It is my promise to her that for as long as I am able, I will recognize, restory, and remember. — Nancy A. Dafoe

[V]alue your dreams but ... be wary of them also, ... look for integrity in unusual places. — Azar Nafisi

The more I learned the more I realized how very much one has to know before one is in-the-know at all. — Julia Child

This is the only advice I offer you. Pick the small thing, and carry it on. Let it change your life. — Anna White

I try to be perfect but I'm not. I'm perfectly imperfect in every way. — James Weston

As the silence returned, I sat back and felt the tension ease away; I hadn't even known I was tense. A few moments passed and once again the cycling fan laced in with the clanging chains and mixed with the rumbling mower and the buzzing insects. — Gerry Abbey

So this needs to be said, and so I will try to say it — Jason Najum

Chris didn't need to learn how to conquer fear. He had to embrace it, walk with it and listen to it. — Michelle Tackabery

What we dedicate today is not a memorial to war, rather it's a tribute to the physical and moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys and that inspires Americans in every generation to lay down their lives for people they will never meet, for ideals that make life itself worth living. — Bob Dole

It is a beautiful and scary thing to sit open-handed and let all your plans float away like dust. — Anna White

A lot of men tend to want "models"
I tell men, unless they look like a model themselves, they can't expect to land one. — Trisha Ventker

Life is worth living and no matter what it throws at you it is important to keep your eyes on the prize of the happiness that will come. Even when the Death Railway reduced us to little more than animals, humanity in the shape of our saintly medical officers triumphed over barbarism.
Remember, while it always seems darkest before the dawn, perseverance pays off and the good times will return. — Alistair Urquhart

It starts with a single breath and the present moment, but where it takes you is into the vast radiance of your true nature, into a magical, spacious life. — Narissa Doumani

Who among us is free? Only those who see their chains know what freedom means.-pg. 123 Welland Hevington, A Memoir The Demon's Daughter — Emma Holly

The shape of your life depends upon whether you choose to be the sculptor or the clay. — Pamela M. Covington

It's one thing to have a divinely inspired love given to you to experience and share; it's something else altogether to recognize it when it appears. Our job is to go on being humbled and grateful that we should get to experience such a thing in our lifetimes, and preserve its magic by doing the most responsible thing possible to keep it alive ...
Just keep saying yes. — Mark Fiore

CRUEL HARVEST by Fran Elizabeth Grubb is a compelling, riveting, unforgetable memoir that will keep you turning the pages. Published by Thomas Nelson and due for release August 2012. Kidnapped from an orphanage Frances is dragged across the country working in the fields. Youtubefrangrubb to see video book trailer. — Fran Elizabeth Grubb

We cannot honor those we have lost if we lose our minds. - Charmainism — Charmaine Smith Ladd

To make one think is to change a generation, to build one thought is to grow a better world — Yolanda De Iuliis

Haunted by demons of the past, hounded by demons not yet met, the nevermore and evermore left her little peace." ~A Tale of Two Women — Kimberly Kinrade

I want to share my story, and I want to know yours. I believe with all my heart that sharing our stories, the real, ugly, broken ones, is one of the most powerful things in the world, because to share our story we must first accept it. We must own it. We must stop running from it or shoving it into the corner when company comes over. To share our story is to admit that we've been changed. — Anna White

When you write your memoir you will understand, perhaps for the first time, the significance of your life through the language, images and emotions you craft from the memory. — Maureen Murdock

In the English language, it all comes down to this: Twenty-six letters, when combined correctly, can create magic. Twenty -six letters form the foundation of a free, informed society. — John Grogan

Tomorrow is promised to no one so live your life fully everyday. — Therese Crutcher-Marin

They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. — Patricia Christian Punches

He wasn't a great man, but he had a great life. — Jeffrey Rasley

Being broken isn't the worst thing. We can be mended and put together again. We don't have to be ashamed of our past. We can embrace the history that gives us value, and see our cracks as beautiful. — Anna White

The shadow is dark and the woods are cold, but they are not endless. No matter how lost you are now, you are not lost forever. You are findable.
Love just keeps on looking.
Love is forever tries. — Anna White

Murphy's law inverted: What can go right, will go right. (Works if you're an optimist.) — Saloma Miller Furlong

Families that feel together, heal together. — Christina G. Hibbert Psy.D.

Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life's legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I am still not good enough. I am still not whole enough. I am still not pure enough. I am still weakness and sharp edges and broken, but He is good and pure and whole, all that I strive for but am not.
I wake up every morning and I sit in silence and I choose to believe. I may speak. I may not. I let Him wrap up all my broken in to His grace. He takes me imperfect. This is the great mystery I never knew. — Anna White

I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue. — Haruki Murakami

The whole world is like an opened candy jar, and we're plunging in for the best treats — Vicki Alayne Bradley

When we invoke stillness within our consciousness, we have the power to recover the child we forgot that we once were. — Daniel St. Clair

Choose this life. Choose this body. Say yes to all of it. Say yes to the beauty and the good and the ugly and the difficult. Choose what you have, what you are. Choose this moment. Choose to love and remember. You are full. You are alive. — Kimber Simpkins

It's only natural for people to fall, but there are people who, even if they fall, jump right back up right away and run forward, and there are people who just keep sitting there, crying. — Ilchi Lee

Alongside the liberating relief of the veteran who tells us his story, I now felt in the writing a complex, intense, and new pleasure, similar to that I felt as a student when penetrating the solemn order of differentials calculus. It was exalting to search and find, or create, the right word, that is, commensurate, concise, and strong; to dredge up events from my memory and describe them with the greatest rigor and the least clutter. — Primo Levi

I never want to make screw-you money like the rest of the financial services industry. — Dan Price

Alone, I relished the bird songs, the drone of hushed conversation from neighboring tables, and the gentle lapping of waves sliding on the shore.

I didn't feel the passage of time. There was no destination propelling me forward, no past and no future. Each glorious moment was replaced by the next. — Marilyn Berman

In this week I see such a picture of life, hard and joyful pressed up together and sleeping in the same bed. They come knit together. The lines of pain run through the joy and remind us to go all in, because life is short. The joy edges the pain and gives us a reason to rise. — Anna White

I've always let my imagination run free, but now I try to rein it in. Things never turn out the way I imagine, so I am letting them rest. Instead, I am holding just what is in my hand. — Anna White

I love that there's no cutoff where we get labeled and sent off to a home for hopeless, cranky, depressives. Every day is a new chance to listen longer and be braver and love more. We get to try again and again and again. — Anna White

I guess this means we're uck-fayed, don't it Mikee? — Michael Jay

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer! — Gerry Abbey

I write so that my handful of pebbles, cast daily into still waters, will produce a ripple. — Anne Schroeder

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

The features of character are carved out of adversity. — Rick Barnett

You kids were all planned, you were just planned really, really quickly. — Candace Allan

Never let a man determine the woman you want to be. — Maranda Evans

It is such a luxury to open a new book that's highly recommended by friends - either an inspirational yet humorously self-deprecating memoir, or a page-turning piece of fiction. — Kelli O'Hara

God wants to take the fears that you and I are holding onto with both hands. He throws them aside, effortless, and then takes our empty hands in His and fills them with his love. He is not a hard driver. He wants to provide. — Anna White

I've been a storyteller since I was six years old when my mother had her first series of electroshock therapy treatments. I made up stories to keep my sisters quiet while mom slept." Dear Deb
"I didn't know how it felt to have cancer, but I knew about fear." Dear Deb
"Two people have tried to kill me. The first person was my mother." Dear Deb
"I used to believe there were big miracles and little miracles. But, I'm not so sure God measures miracles." Dear Deb
"I was raised to believe forgiveness was a gift I was supposed to give the person who hurt me, but that felt like giving a bully an ice cream cone after he pushed me down on the playground." Dear Deb
"Miracles are one of God's ways of getting our attention. I know he got mine. It's a miracle I'm here." Dear Deb — Margaret Terry

Every day is a new beginning, the building of a habit. Every action is a step in some direction. There is no pause in living. — Anna White

There were signs everywhere but none that I could read or even hope to decipher. These multi-lined symbols unhinged my familiar world. — Gerry Abbey

I discovered that when one follows the artist's eye one sees unexpected treasures in so many seemingly ordinary scenes. — Julia Child

July 22, 2009
At times I still feel lost, but I also feel the comfort of my Lord through the physical pain and the mental challenges. I know He's there. I can feel Him in the sun beaming down on my brown skin. It feels like love and comfort. It feels like He's holding me when I suffer and I'm not alone. — Jacquelyn Nicole Davis

I've heard that sometimes a version of you must die before another more enlightened version can be born. I think that's true after watching the corpse of myself walk around. — Julie Flygare

If you can see it, you can achieve it. God helps those who helps themselves. Power is in the act of humility. — Patricia Amis

I can't say for sure if I'm better off, since I have no way of knowing what would have been. I could have traveled to exotic places and kissed exotic men in the moonlight. Or I could have ended living alone in a dumpy apartment with the flesh eating virus I contracted from a public toilet. Could haves are always a great unknown. — Anna White

Your past doesn't dictate what your future will be. — Jillian Bullock

You can make a difference in another person's life and not realize it, just by giving them One Moment of your time, One Memory to recall, One Motion that tells them they are not alone! OM! — Deb Simpson

Our destiny is aligned with our heart's innermost longing, a longing embedded within our soul before birth. This longing is a unique pattern or configuration reminiscent of the constellations in the night sky. When we express (press out) our unique configuration, it shines through us with an otherworldly luminosity, manifesting abundance in our lives and the lives of others. Our sole task is to yoke our inner destiny, thread it through our lives and weave it into the world. All else is just shadows and dust. — Thea Euryphaessa

Mistakes? That's why they put erasers on pencils. — Rick Barnett

Leaving North Korea is not like leaving any other country. It is more like leaving another universe. I will never truly be free of its gravity, no matter how far I journey. — Hyeonseo Lee

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

If I have been given any gift in this life, it's my ability to live simultaneously in the rational world and the world of imagination. — Tom Robbins

The road to the heart is not a long, linear path, but this turning. There is no race or competition, just me and God going deeper, carving a canyon to the soul. — Anna White

The Americans were understandably on hair triggers. There was a good reason for all of this security. For despite TV images of quick victory, much of Baghdad certainly had not fallen and firefights with die-hard Ba'athists loyal to Saddam Hussein were raging all over the city. — Lawrence Anthony

I always felt awkward and unfinished, unworthy of love, suspicious of affection offered. My mother's absence became a great presence in my life. — Marilyn Sewell

I want my heart to be the thin place. I don't want to board a plane to feel the kiss of heaven. I want to carry it with me wherever I go. I want my fragile, hurting heart, to recognize fleeting kairos, eternal moments as they pass. I want to be my own mountain and my own retreat. — Anna White

Indie authors write, design, sell. Like magic, skip one and you make must read vanish. — Temple Emmet Williams

Who knows what the long-term effects of saving rescue dogs are and the healing lessons and love they bring to Earth? Each one of us has the capacity to influence hundreds - even thousands of people or animals through the way we live our lives. — Jadi Kindred

I wonder who else in the world was having such an exquisite dawn. — Hope Jahren

I believe in beauty. I believe in goodness. I believe in the power of turning: the other cheek, time, curve of the earth. — Anna White

I define success as being the best, authentic me that I can be. — Leeky Behrman

Everything we have, everything we are, is a gift.
How can we judge and shame ourselves if this is true? — Anna White

I encourage anyone who has gone through hardships to look back through their life's chapters and see what can be turned into a book. For you never know what heartache God, one day, can turn into a redemptive story. — Jolina Petersheim

Sex is not a wizard, whatever magical-seeming properties it might possess in its better forms. If your friend says to you, "You're being mean, you need to get laid," your problem is not sex. Your problems are that you might be acting like an asshole, and your friends are definitely idiots. — Katie Heaney

It takes all my strength to do daily tasks. To some people, I'm just a number. I'm a projected food stamps debit card lifetime member. I'm seen as crazy or insane, but it doesn't matter. I know I am bigger than my suffering. — Jacquelyn Nicole Davis

I would advise the curious reader to keep in mind the old adage "truth is stranger than fiction." Expect the most outlandish, fantastic and unbelievable elements of this story to be true, and the more low-key elements to be fudged. — Dan Grajek

You suffer the blow, but you capitalize on the opportunity left in its wake. — Michael J. Fox

We're distracted and we let the door slam on the person behind us, we trip over curbs as we're texting, we're...sedentary, weighed down, collapsed over the laptop. ...We've forgotten how to move through life with grace. — Sarah L. Kaufman

The only way to move forward is to focus on the good in your life and the good that you are doing for others and yourself. My past has shown me things in life, others and myself that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, but I can choose to pick up the pieces and build a beautiful life for myself and help others to do the same. — Brittany Burgunder