A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.
You get a little picture that reflects the whole. You can get readers interested in the life of one guy, and he can reflect the whole life around him. And it's a better picture than the politicians give you.
Memoir implies the need to reveal something about yourself - to recount your life for educational purposes.
In these night recitations we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is the space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.
I knew it would be painful to write a memoir.
Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.
When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world
O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.
I think, in life, we want to surround ourselves with people who make us think and question ourselves, and those are the types of films I want to do and the types of characters that I hope I get to continue to play.
In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.
Period pieces hold up a mirror to the world that we live in.
