Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.

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.

Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.

Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.

Mother’s particular devils had remained mysterious to me for decades. So had her past. Few born liars ever intentionally embark in truth’s direction, even those who believe that such a journey might axiomatically set them free.

I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I'd been publishing for 20 years.

For me, everything's too much and nothing's enough.