Autobiography Quotes

“Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me.”
― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot

“Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.”
― John Berger

“I marveled at the beauty of all life and savored the power and possibilities of my imagination. In these rare moments, I prayed, I danced, and I analyzed. I saw that life was good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I understood that I had to dwell on the good and beautiful in order to keep my imagination, sensitivity, and gratitude intact. I knew it would not be easy to maintain this perspective. I knew I would often twist and turn, bend and crack a little, but I also knew that…I would never completely break.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.”
― Yevgeny Yevtushenko

“What Turning Forty Means to Me

I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn't used to have to do that. But now I do.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“In order to survive her tumultuous childhood, Mary created another Fat Mary, a companion and consoler, who took away her hurts, fears, and questions and kept them safe until Mary was older and mature enough to process the abuse and neglect she had endured.”
― Maria Nhambu

“I had a long talk with my dear Fat Mary that night, because I had many questions. Could someone actually be beaten to death by such a nun? Did Mother Rufina, the new Superior, know that Sister Clotilda was so cruel? Who let her work with children? Could nuns go to hell?
Fat Mary told me she didn’t know the answers to my questions, but she reminded me that it was her role to take my worries and burdens and keep them for me until a time when I could understand them.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“I'm not reclusive at all. Just private.”
― Don DeLillo

“I was alone. I had no one. No mother, no father, no brothers, no sisters, no grandmas, no grandpas, no uncles, no aunties, no cousins, and no tribe. I’d seen the children at the orphanage laugh or cry when they received news about a family member. I would never receive such news and no family would laugh or cry for me. That day I understood with sharp clarity that I didn’t have a mother who wanted me.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“When you dance with the Africans, unless it is a ritual dance like a wedding or harvest or rain dance, there’s no right or wrong way to dance. There’s only movement. And the more you express your feelings as you move, the better you feel when you’re done…When I dance the African Way, I show my feelings with my body instead of hiding them in my heart. When I dance, I know I’m alive here and now. My body and soul are in harmony.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“I prayed that our growth would be as strong and determined as the seeds of coconut palms, boldly reaching skyward toward the sun diligently boring deeper into the earth to secure a firm foundation for the beautiful, durable, fruit-bearing trees they would become. For me, Mhonda was the place to continue the growth of the still young but strong roots of my tree planted in Kifungilo. This was my life now, the life I’d prayed for, the life that would provide me with an education and would open doors. I wanted this life very much. I told my wavering spirit to bear with me because, just like the coconut palm, I would sway and bend and bruise, but I would survive. I would have to become the tree in the African saying: ‘The tree that bends with the wind does not break.”
― Maria Nhambu, Africa's Child

“I believe that we are who we choose to be.

Nobody is going to come and save you. You've got to save yourself.

Nobody is going to give you anything. You've got to go out and fight for it.

Nobody knows what you want except you, and nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it.

So don't give up your dreams.”
― Barry Manilow, Sweet Life: Adventures On The Way To Paradise

“If you haven't cried at least once while writing a chapter of your inspirational book, then you have to ask yourself if your're writing fiction.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.”
― Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles

“a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

“One other thing—she was always armed. Ossie May talked about her gun even more than she bragged about her cooking. Out of nowhere, she took me to the gun range. She finished one clip with her right hand then unloaded the other clip with her left hand. I certainly got the message. She was not to be messed with or messed over. I was scared straight by this woman.”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.”
― Don DeLillo

“Sit back, enjoy the ride and hang out with me for a little while. ( sorry, cheesy driving metaphor!)”
― Miley Cyrus with Hilary Liftin, Miles to Go

“Your limits are somewhere up there, waiting for you to reach beyond infinity.”
― Arnold Henry

“Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

“I don't need no Smith and Wesson, man, I got Merriam and Webster.”
― Avi Steinberg, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian

“Former police chief of Houston once said of me: “Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it ‘U.R. Hooked’ and cash it at any bank in town, using a Hong Kong driver’s license for identification.”
― Frank W. Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake

“You must have me confused with myself”
― Michael Palmer, The Promises of Glass

“Thanksgiving is no time for amateur hour in the kitchen, but we were subjected to this Gong Show on a yearly basis. Aunt Kathy went knee deep in her preparations where others would have surrendered.”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening - all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.”
― Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One

“Have you ever really wanted to be able to do something, but you came across a roadblock of some kind?
You have a difficult choice. I made that choice once and it changed my whole life, by giving me experiences I never would have had if I took the easy street and had not tried.”
― Deanie Humphrys-Dunne, Tails of Sweetbrier

“When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans.”
― Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth

“Autobiographies are always written as if the author had it all mapped out with perfect foresight, ignoring the risks and uncertainties at that time. This misleads, as much as those beautiful photographs of a past holiday abstract from the heat, the mosquitoes, and the lack of connectivity.”
― Raghuram G. Rajan, I Do What I Do

“In moments of exhaustion, I think for some reason of writing an autobiography--proper work for tired artists--but every autobiographer must secretly believe he has triumphed in life. Maybe, incidentally, this accounts for the paucity of women's autobiographies--they know better.”
― Arthur Miller, Salesman in Beijing