Bill Bryson Quotes

I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.

The difference between memoir and autobiography, as far as I see it, is that a memoir is there primarily to tell one particular story, whereas an autobiography tries to be a full account of a life.

I don't write about my life in my column.

The book is called 'Thanks for Nothing' and it's really the story of how I got into comedy and traces back every strand in my life that is relevant to that story. It's kind of an autobiography but isn't, as it stops about 25 years ago. It goes right up to the first time I do stand up.

People have asked me about doing an autobiography, but I don't think my life is that interesting.

There's a lot of material from my life in my books, but they're not really autobiographical, in the sense that they're not about my life. So, in 'A Feather on the Breath of God' I write about my parents, I write about this Russian immigrant, I write about the world of dance, but it isn't an autobiography; so much is left out.

I write about my life, choosing incidents that I think will be, for one reason or another, significant to people. Often because they may have experienced the same things.

Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.

One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.

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

The autobiographical doesn't interest me. I could think of few things less interesting than rooting about in my life.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

My book has a lot of parts of my life that people don't know about.

In 'Out of the Dark,' I'm talking about my own life. I'm not talking as a character or speaking as a character. I was not as free as when I write fiction.

I haven't written my memoirs or let the television movie be made about my life.

I write about my life.

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

'Genes, Girls, and Gamow' was an attempt, even more than 'The Double Helix,' to mix science with one's personal life. With 'The Double Helix,' no one had done it before, but I thought I'd try.

I see my albums as working diaries, as living scrapbooks of me and my life.

If you want to know anything about me, read my books - it's all there.

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

As irony would have it, the very person who inspired me to write a memoir... was the only person to be ejected from it. My brother didn't appear in 'Out of Egypt.'

I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up.

I had many doubts while writing my autobiography. I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested to read about my life.

I've never been a confessional writer.