Sometimes when a character in a novel is difficult for me to enter, I sue something in myself or in my own life as a doorway into that character's mind and emotions.

In her bottled up is a woman peppery as curry, a yam of a woman of butter and brass.

Never doubt that you can change history. You already have.

Suppose that a person writes what she must. That is only the first step of becoming a writer. The work must survive the moment of creation. It must get out to an audience. She or he must dare to show the work. She must risk ridicule, misunderstanding, scandal, condemnation, & what's often worse, none of the above: silence. No attention at all.

I don't find that writing about parts of my life had much effect except in some cases to improve my memory. To get into parts of the past I want to recall very vividly, I use a form of directed meditation.

I don't even remember what Mother and I quarreled about: it is a continual quarrel that began when I reached puberty.

There are obviously a great many ways to organize some fraction of the material in a life.