We all write fiction when we write about the past.

“Some times, you write fiction stories. Others, you use fiction to write your story.”

— S. Usher Evans

I don't write fiction but I do write narrative; I write memoirs that I treat like stories, so whenever I'm using somebody I actually…

— Vivian Gornick

“Not afraid to write about my past to inspire your future”

— Jordone Branch

Why write about the past? Well, there's more of it.

— John Cleese

In my case, I write in the past because I'm not really part of the present. I have nothing valid to say about anything…

— Patrick O'Brian

I write with my past, about the future, for the present

— Eyedea

I cannot write about the past unless I go where history happened. Some make very good armchair historians, I'm not one of them. If…

— Bettany Hughes

“To write past events in the present tense adds immediacy to your prose. ~Yvonne Blackwood”

— Yvonne Blackwood

I think we're on a journey…It was very easy to write about my past in my book, but writing about the present is all…

— Donna Karan

It's even easier to write about the past now that I'm happy and have better stuff to write about. That's why someone like Bob…

— Frankie Cosmos

You can't re-write your past, but you can grab a clean sheet of paper and write your future.

— Anonymous

“When you write about the past, you lie with each letter, with every grapheme, including the goddamn comma.”

— Rabih Alameddine

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

— Ernest Gaines

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing,…

— Kate Atkinson

I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I…

— Ben Lerner