The real subject of autobiography is not one's experience but one's consciousness. Memoirists use the self as a tool.
Patricia HamplTime, we like to say, cures all. But maybe the old saying doesnโt mean time heals. Time cures a secret in its brine, keeping it and finally, paradoxically, destroying it. Nothing is left in that salt solution but the pain or rage, the biting shame that lodged it there. Even they are diluted or denied.
Patricia HamplPeople come and go in life, but they never leave your dreams. Once they're in your subconscious, they are immortal.
Patricia HamplThe artist's work, it is sometimes said, is to celebrate. But really that is not so; it is to express wonder. And something terrible resides at the heart of wonder. Celebration is social, amenable. Wonder has a chaotic splendor.
Patricia HamplOur capacity to move forward as developing beings rests on a healthy relationship with the past. Psychotherapy, that widespread method for promoting mental health, relies heavily on memory and on the ability to retrieve and organize images and events from the personal pastIf we learn not only to tell our stories but to listen to what our stories tell usโto write the first draft and then return for the second draftโwe are doing the work of memory.
Patricia Hampl