Autobiographical Truth Quotes

One of these days when I'm finished coaching at Alabama, I'll write an authorized book because there's only one expert on my life, and guess who that is... me. And there won't be any misinformation. There won't be any false statements. There won't be any hearsay. There won't be any expert analysis from anybody else. It will be the real deal.

I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.

There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.

My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer fiction, if the material events which mark and ballast my career had not their public dates and characters scientifically discoverable.

Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.

I believe people have the right to tell their own story as honestly and accurately as they can.

But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

Slash and I hadn't talked in 19 years, and when we did talk, I was like, 'You wrote a lot of stuff that didn't even happen. It's not real.'

I think one can be more honest in fiction than in a memoir.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

Writing a novel is easier than writing a memoir; you are not constrained by the truth.

I can speak for my own actions.

An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

In a memoir, I think, the contract implies a certain degree of truth. I think you have to be as true to your memory and your experience as you possibly can.

There's always a bit of fiction in everything that I write.

It’s terribly important to write your own history before the historians get a crack at it.

Autobiographies tell more lies than all but the most self-indulgent fiction.

In the years that I have been an actress, I have told the story of my life many times, and I get tired of it, so sometimes I change it a little. That is, I change the mood. If I am feeling sad, then I remember to tell only the sad things. If I am feeling happy, then I can remember only to tell all the good things.

As a memoirist, I may claim to write the easier-to-remember things, but I could also just be writing to sweep them away. 'Don't bother me about my past,' I'll say, 'It's out in paperback now.'

It's a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it's equally assumed you're lying your head off.

I certainly couldn't have written 'Angela's Ashes' when my mother was alive, because she would have been ashamed.