When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do — well, that’s Memoirs.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Essay (1932-03-12), “Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to Senator Borah,” Saturday Evening Post
(Source)
William Borah (1885-1940) was a US Senator from Idaho (1907-1940). He was progressive politically, but an isolationist, a key figure in blocking US approval of the Versailles Treaty or joining the League of Nations.
Collected in Donald Day (ed.), The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949), and Steven K Gragert (ed.), More Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat (1982).
Quotations about:
autobiography
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Over the years our bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of our lives. Distortions of function that occur after injuries, like a limited range of motion in a hurt arm, become a permanent part of our body pattern. Our musculature reflects not only old injuries but old anxieties. Poses of timidity, depression, bravado, or stoicism adopted early in life are locked into our bodies as patterns in our sensorimotor system.
Marilyn Ferguson (1938-2008) American author, editor, public speaker
The Aquarian Conspiracy, ch. 8 (1980)
(Source)
There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Summing Up, ch. 4 (1938)
(Source)
To return to the matter of the persona, I repeat that one cannot wholly eliminate oneself for a second, and also sufficient, reason: any fiction (and surely poetry too?) is bound to be transposed autobiography. (True, it may be this at so many removes as to defeat recognition.) I can, and indeed if i would not I still must, relate any and every story I have written to something that happened to me in my own life. But here I am speaking of happenings in a broad sense — to behold and react, is where I am concerned a happening; speculations, unaccountable stirs of interest, longings, attractions, apprehensions without knowable cause — these are happenings, also.
Never let the facts alone obscure the truth of your narrative. The truth is what your life really felt like.
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
“The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990)
(Source)
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
Groucho and Me (1959)
Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1944-06-01), “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali,” Dickens, Dali & Others (1946), opening words
(Source)
The essay was originally printed in Saturday Book magazine, but the publisher decided it had to be "suppressed on grounds of obscenity" and had the essay physically cut out of each printed copy.
The passage is referring to, among others, Dali's The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (1942).
