Books Quote by Emma Donoghue

I think one can be more honest in fiction than in a memoir.

— Akhil Sharma

For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.

— Akhil Sharma

The idea of a memoir is to tell the truth. I know that often the truth hurts, but a lie hurts even more.

— Rohan Marley

A memoir takes some particular threads, some incidents, some experience from a person's life and gives an account of it.

— Richard Hell

For me, a memoir is supposed to be understood as a representation of your life, whereas a novel is self-consciously symbolic.

— Sheila Heti

I believe a good memoir should have all of the narrative elements of a novel: character development, dialogue, descriptive language, and metaphor.

— Danielle Trussoni

Writing a novel is easier than writing a memoir; you are not constrained by the truth.

— Steve Bisley

I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.

— Elie Wiesel

Unless your aim is to deceive, there's not a meaningful distinction between memoir and fiction. They're marketing categories.

— Emily Gould

A memoir is my version of events. My perspective. I choose what to tell and what to omit. I choose the adjectives to describe…

— Isabel Allende

The memoir as a somewhat indistinct form is absolutely true. So many of the memoirs I've read, and the ones I have gravitated toward…

— Lidia Yuknavitch

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

— Augusten Burroughs