Andre Aciman Quotes

It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page.

Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.

I knew it would be painful to write a memoir.

When you write a memoir, and it's your life, and you're exposing things that are close to home, it's hard to see it changed.

'Beautiful' was something that I kept really close to my heart, that I kept from a lot of people for years and years. It's my story. And I think that was the first impression I needed to give to people as a solo artist. This is who I am; this is what I'm about.

When writing 'Behind the Mask,' I opened up on every level. Hopefully, even the more knowledgeable fans, who really know me, will be surprised when they read it.

I'm afraid that if I started to ponder who I am and what I am, I might not like what I find.

The portrait I do best is of the person I know best.

A memoir is an invitation into another person's privacy.

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

The emotional stakes a memoirist bets with could not be higher, and it's physically enervating. I nap on a daily basis like a cross-country trucker.

I think it's difficult, if you're a quite private person like I am, to write about your life very intimately.

The real rub is finding that authentic self and it's not something that's going to come to you overnight.

If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.

I think the hardest stories we tell are always the ones about ourselves. And as a journalist, I was taught that I'm never supposed to put myself in the story. So I spent what, 11, 12 years of my life writing about other people so I don't have to face my own life.

My interest lies in my self-expression - what's inside of me - not what I'm in.

I've written three books you could think of as memoirs.

My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name.

I'm terrified of therapy because I don't want it to mess with my creativity.

Acting is about giving yourself away, like the U2 song 'With or Without You.' You just don't stay behind a character and make people laugh or cry. At some point you have to take off that mask, and when you do, you're a human being, not just an actor. After all, I'm Catherine the person first. You share that.

When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.

All art is a confession.

Writing a memoir begins a process that doesn't necessarily end with publication. You begin to think about family life and stories and relationships, and those are ongoing.

With each book, I've found myself more and more able to draw off the personal and still be as vulnerable as I need to be as a writer.

As a writer, penning down personal stuff was not easy for me, as it was way too close to my heart.