Art Quote by William Zinsser Download Open image “Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.” — William Zinsser ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.2 out of 5 (7 ratings) Copy quoteShare Art Inventing Memoir Truth
To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author… — Tayari Jones Copy Share Image
In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre. — Edmund White Copy Share Image
Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true. — Augusten Burroughs Copy Share Image
“All works of nonfiction, or memoir, have to first and foremost be art before they can be true. They have to be artful first before they can be truthful... If you emphasize the truth-telling at the expense of art, nobody is going to be interested in it. And if you sacrifice truth in the name of art, you risk triviality.… — Alan Shapiro Copy Share
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 Copy Share Image
A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life,… — Isabel Allende Copy Share Image
“But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every words that serves no function, every long word… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write obscurely are either… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Avoid the ecstatic adjectives that occupy such disproportionate space in every critic's quiver - words like "enthralling" and "luminous." — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Scholarship hath no fury like that of a language purist faced with sludge. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other. — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Copy Share Image
Before Noah, men having only water to drink, could not find the truth. Accordingly...they became abominably wicked, and they were justly exterminated by the… — Benjamin Franklin Copy Share Image
“Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.” — Aeschylus Copy Share Image
I think most artists feel like they're outside society - no matter how many accolades they receive, or how much money is in your… — Aaron Rose Copy Share Image
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science. — Erich Fromm Copy Share Image
That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. — Ray Bradbury Copy Share Image
“So, really," continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, "when you think about it, the artists… — Justina Chen Headley Copy Share Image
“There are two options in art; either to adopt philosophical life by dissecting art, or to write your own philosophical life and claim it… — Taf Teh Copy Share Image
The house has to serve comfort. The work of art is revolutionary; the house is conservative. — Adolf Loos Copy Share Image
During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art. — Herbert Spencer Copy Share Image
In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention. It is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are… — Robert Aris Willmott Copy Share Image
I think a business guy is different from an artist. They walk different paths. Artists create the best outputs when they're having fun. And… — G-Dragon Copy Share Image