Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.

When you're ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.

A simple [writing] style is the result of very hard work.

Memoir isn't the summary of a life; it's a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It's not; it's a deliberate construction.

People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.

Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.

Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.