John Dunne Quotes

It's true that all my novels have been versions of myself to some degree.

All my movies have an autobiographical dimension, but that is indirectly, through the personages. In fact, I am behind everything that happens and that is said, but I am never talking about myself in first person singular.

All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.

For the most part, there's so much of me in my characters.

Well, I think in my own work the subject matter usually deals with characters I know, aspects of myself, friends of mine - that sort of thing.

I don't really think of my essays as being about myself. I know it sounds insane, but I just don't think of them as a memoir. They're essays; they're not an autobiography.

I think as an author every character ends up low-key being some kind of self-insert.

When you write a show, every character is you to some extent.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

One of the things I love about writing is the way you can use what you know and what you've experienced, without actually writing about yourself. I've given many of my experiences and perceptions to many of the characters in the book, but none of them is me.

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.

Every character a writer creates has some of themselves in it somewhere.

When I do my collection, it is in a way my own story.

I think novels are profoundly autobiographical. If writers deny that, they are lying. Or if it's really true, then I think it's a mistake.

Sometimes, a writer 'character' is just a projection of a person who is writing the story, but not necessarily 'me.'

Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical.

First novels tend to be blood-lettings, and they're focused on you, not the reader.

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 my characters are me, in one way or another.

I don't write about myself. I'm never in my books.

I'm actually beginning to believe that there is something in common among all of my characters. I'm not sure what it is exactly. But I guess that something is me.

To me, writing is a personal thing; I write super-personal, autobiographically.

I read a quote to the effect that we are always writing about ourselves no matter what we're doing. That may be so.

Ultimately, I don't think you can be a character who's completely alien or divorced from your own personality. It's probably true of every writer - it's probably true of every filmmaker, every songwriter - that, ultimately, every character you create is a facet of yourself.