Gary Krist Quotes

I wrote 'Mistress of Spices' at an unusual time when I had a near-death experience after the birth of my second son.

All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

If I examine the circumstances which inspired me to write - and this is not mere self-indulgence, but a desire for accuracy - I see clearly that the starting point of it all for me was war.

The easiest thing to write was 'Fever Pitch' because it was a memoir.

I've been making notes of my life, but when it finally came time to write it, it took me back, and I cried many tears. But I also think that it's liberating.

Someday, I'll write a book about what I've been through.

When it was suggested that I write a memoir I said, 'I'm not old enough. I'm not distinguished enough.' But I went home and sat down to write, and the material for the book just came flooding into my hands.

A memoir is my version of events. My perspective. I choose what to tell and what to omit. I choose the adjectives to describe a situation, and in that sense, I'm creating a form of fiction.

Had I been in Toronto, I would certainly have been killed in this attack. In the room where I normally sleep, the flames and the smoke and the soot is such that the gases would have killed me.

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

I would like to continue to tell stories of what I did in a biographical way, so I will continue to write.

I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.

I was stabbed when I was 17. It was touch and go, and my lung collapsed, and I was in hospital for five days. It is part of my back story.

Autobiographical fiction is very tricky.

I remember tearing up the first time I read Nabokov's description, in 'Speak, Memory,' of his father being tossed on a blanket by cheering muzhiks, with its astonishingly subtle foreshadowing of grief and mourning.

I wrote the first draft of 'Plan B' the summer after I turned 21.

I keep a diary because I love this writer, David Sedaris, and he writes a lot about his diary, and he inspired me to keep one.

There is no level of professional rejection that can compare to almost dying.

'Dreams from My Father' was not a memoir or an autobiography; it was instead, in multitudinous ways, without any question a work of historical fiction.

It's not until after you've been hit by a car and landed all right that the fear kicks in.

If people call my book an actor's memoir I will be very upset. I can't bear anything too literal, so it has elements of truth and elements of fiction sitting side by side.

I love nonfiction the most. It's hard to find a good nonfiction story, and that's why I'm not as prolific, I guess, as a lot of people. They're hard to find. I love the nonfiction writer Ben Macintyre. I think he's terrific at the form of telling a story in a cinematic way.

When you hear 'From the Other Side,' it's like being on an operating table. Suddenly, you're on the ceiling looking down at the doctors who are fighting for you. Are you gonna get a second chance or not?

I will surely pen my autobiography.

I think I do more fiction than autobiography.