Memoirists wish to tell their mind, not their story.
You canโt put much on paper before you betray your secret self, try as you will to keep things civil.
We store in memory only images of value. The value may be lost over the passage of time, but that's the implacable judgment of feeling.
Planes are my foxhole. I'm always on my knees in them.
A careful first draft is a failed first draft
A peculiarity of the American historical sensibility allows us to be proud of great-grandfathers (or even grandfathers) who lived in crushing poverty, while the poverty of a father is too close for comfort.