Edith Pearlman Quotes

I write in a rush of memory.

Although my father's mother, Nancy, has dementia, and her experiences gave me ideas for some of the scenes in the book, it was my mother's mother, Vera, who most influenced the character of Maud. Vera died in 2008, before I'd gotten very far into writing 'Elizabeth Is Missing,' but her voice is very like Maud's.

Yes, I have two books that are about me: one of them I wrote, and the other one was written about me. One of my books, which is called 'Spying on Miss Muller,' is really about me even though it's a novel. My autobiography is called 'Once Upon a Time.'

I have stacks and stacks of journals. I'll change the names if I ever decide to publish them.

I think I want to write a biography, something with broad appeal, but I haven't figured out about whom.

I have a children's book already out and my autobiography.

To my mind, forgetting is a risky strategy for living. Memory is essential to us. It is DNA. We need to remember, and we need to imagine. That's why we have books, writing, fiction.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

Everything is fiction. You only have your own life to work with in the way that a biographer only has the letters and journals to work with.

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.

I was probably 35 when I wrote the first story. The voice is kind of a mix in that it has a young voice, but it's also someone who's looking back. I like that kind of double vision.

Most writers, by the time they're 60, must have revisited their childhood a dozen times.

I've never had any interest at all in being a journalist or writing some sort of historically accurate autobiography.

I never really considered writing something that was nonfiction.

I have some very good friends who've written memoirs, but it's not for me. It's just not a format that I'm interested in.

I would like to write my biography sometime. I love to write. I could write for weeks and weeks, maybe say nothing but just for the writing.

I lost my son in late 2011. He had been totally incapacitated from his neck down for the last eight years of his life, but his mind was alive and brilliant in those years. He even wrote a book, 'Allegheny Mountain,' lying at home in his hospital bed.

I remember this one time I had a dream about me writing a screenplay, and when I woke up, you know those dreams that feel so real, but I woke up and I was like, 'Oh my god I have this amazing screenplay I need to write down as soon as I wake up' and then I woke up and I was like what the heck was I dreaming of?

Memory is a powerful thing for a writer.

My family had a lot to do with 'My Infamous Life.' They were the inspiration behind me starting to write. I had an interesting family life dating way back, and they did a lot in their lifetime.

It might surprise people to know that the person who convinced me to write the third memoir - 'The Hardcore Diaries' - was actually Vince McMahon.

Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.

A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

My mind immediately shot to South Africa the moment I sat down to think what I was going to write, what I was going to say. There was no other choice.