David Grann Quotes

I'm in a position to look back at my life, and I realized there were a number of experiences that needed to be documented.

To be human is to have a collection of memories that tells you who you are and how you got there.

The experience of the human, male or female, cannot be completely defined by one startling, surprising, or gigantic life experience.

What we are, the experiences we've had, come to the surface.

I wouldn't want to forget anything, even the weird stuff and the bad stuff. It makes you who you are.

Now you see how you are, the wisdom mixed in with all the scars.

I can't say I can foresee the future and tell the stars, you know. But I do have an understanding for my own reality, just elements and things that I've learned from.

You have to live through things. You can't have other people telling you to do that and do this. It's important to live through things.

Every relationship that we have in our lives - our contact with each person, place, and event - serves a very special, if yet to be realized purpose: They are mirrors that can serve to show us things about ourselves that can be realized in no other way.

What we hold in our heads - our memory, our feelings, our thoughts, our sense of our own history - is the sum of our humanity.

People are people, and they want to know about their own experiences.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

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

I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.

Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.

I'm trying to make myself better. But I don't regret anything that I've gone through, because it makes me who I am.

It's not always easy to identify your own voice. It comes with time.

Sometimes you surprise yourself with what you can handle, and if you come out the other end with some wisdom, then it's not such a bad thing.

We're put here on Earth to learn our own lessons. No one can tell you what your lessons are; it is part of your personal journey to discover them. On these journeys we may be given a lot, or just a little bit, of the things we must grapple with, but never more than we can handle.

I know who I am and what I do.

I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end.

Everyone has their own different life experiences which make them who they are. No two people's life experiences are the same. And mine are just unique to me.

I'm not changing to the point where suddenly I wear floor-length skirts and start playing the violin; I'm just growing up a little bit, I guess.

I think part of maturity is knowing who you are.

I think you see in people's eyes what they've been through. Anything in their lives shows up in their eyes.