Joy Harjo Quotes

I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.'

Like most writers, I write about what has happened to me as that involves the minimum amount of research.

When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again.

It's actually easier to do autobiographical stories. The story is already there. It's a matter of carving away what doesn't fit rather than building up from nothing.

Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised recollection of personal experience, is often as much about character and story and emotion as fiction is.

When I started writing 'A Million Little Pieces,' I felt like it was the right story with the style I had been looking for, and I just kept going.

All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

I like autobiographies. I wouldn't mind making one of those.

My father always told me I should be a writer, and I found I loved writing my autobiography; writing is such an interesting process.

I used to think, 'How can I write my life story? I'm still living it.'

I think many people need, even require, a narrative version of their life. I seem to be one of them. Writing memoir is, in some ways, a work of wholeness.

In a sense, any story that anyone writes is going to be autobiographical - whether it deals directly with the author's experience or not - because it captures what we're obsessed with while working on that particular piece.

I think it's nearly impossible to write something fictional without having it be about yourself in some way or another.

Not to be too 'Tale of Two Cities' about it, but I find writing a memoir easier than writing fiction, and more difficult.

I write a lot about my experiences and the people I meet. I've got a lot of material. But a book about me? It seems sort of odd.

Every artist writes his own autobiography.

One of the most attractive things about writing your autobiography is that you're not dead.

I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.

My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name.

Harper Collins gave me a letter of intent saying that they want me to pen down my autobiography. When I was recollecting the incidents of my life for that, I selected only those incidents which were turning points in my life. I staged it instead of writing it.

I want an autobiography without revealing any personal information.

When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.

I'm not one of those people who's so blinded by my own work and my sweat. It's kind of risky writing a memoir when you're really part of a larger universe.

I'm very detail oriented. I think that's why people enjoy my memoirs - because I tend to remember everything.

All through my writing life, I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works.