The words and sentences you take into your body from books are no less sacred and healing than communion. Surely at least one such person lives in your zip code.

The failures of other genres to provide an emotional connection with some of their characters and narratives gives memoir a toehold.

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

I'm bred for farm work, and for such folk, the only A's you get come from effort. Strife and strain are all the world can offer, and they temper you into something unbreakable because Lord knows they'll try -- without let up -- to break you.

As a memoirist, I strive for veracity.

Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You’re three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.

I think we fall in love and become adults and become citizens in a way by writing stories about ourselves.