Companionship in Grief Quotes

“Why read the memoir? Sven Birkerts offers a succinct reason. 'The point—the glory—of memoir is that it anchors its authority in the actual life; it is a modeling of the process of creative self-inquiry as it is applied to the stuff of lived experience. This really happened is the baseline contention of the memoir.”
― Jeffrey Berman, Companionship in Grief: Love and Loss in the Memoirs of C. S. Lewis, John Bayley, Donald Hall, Joan Didion, and Calvin Trillin

“[Donald Hall asked Henry Moore] 'what is the secret of life?' [Moore answered]
'The secret is to devote your whole life to one ambition.
Concentrate everything
you know, everything you can summon,
to accomplish this
one desire. But remember: Choose something
you can't do.”
― Jeffrey Berman, Companionship in Grief: Love and Loss in the Memoirs of C. S. Lewis, John Bayley, Donald Hall, Joan Didion, and Calvin Trillin