Autobiographical quotes:

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Autobiographical comics, I love them. I love them. -- Alison Bechdel
I love songs that are very autobiographical. -- Alanis Morissette
All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography. -- Federico Fellini
My work is purely autobiographical... It is about myself and my surroundings. -- Lucian Freud
I occasionally experience the discomfort of people assuming my work is autobiographical. -- Jonathan Tropper
All through my writing life, I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works. -- Paul Auster
One of the strongest features of Puritanism is its autobiographical tendency, its passionate self-regard. -- Tom Paulin
Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad. -- Gary Oldman
There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest. -- Mark Strand
It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical. -- James Taylor
I don't think there's such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind. -- Maya Angelou
The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. -- Francois Truffaut
People ask, 'Are your things autobiographical?,' and I think, no, they're not autobiographical directly, but of course my life has informed my work. -- Andrea Arnold
I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts. -- Shirley Jackson
After 'Blankets,' I was sick of drawing myself and doing this autobiographical, mundane, Midwestern sort of comics. I wanted to create something bigger than myself and outside myself. -- Craig Thompson
All art, from the paintings on the walls of cave dwellers to art created today, is autobiographical because it comes from the secret place in the soul where imagination resides. -- Gloria Vanderbilt
A drawing is an autobiographical record of one's discovery of an event - either seen, remembered or imagined. A 'finished' work is an attempt to construct an event in itself. -- John Berger
A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best. -- Raymond Carver
The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together. -- Tracy Chapman
All of the narration in 'Smile' is first-person. Most of the books that I grew up reading had first-person narrators for some reason. My diaries were written in this voice, and since this story is autobiographical, it just felt like a natural extension. -- Raina Telgemeier
That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement and identity and empathy, stopping short of being autobiographical - in my case, anyway - but also quite detached. -- Pat Barker
Illustrado' is not an autobiography. Only the ideas are autobiographical; the ideas of bitterness, frustration, unchanging society, an individual lost, social awkwardness... The book satirises archetypes from across Filipino society, and I felt that the least I could do was offer myself up, too. -- Miguel Syjuco
There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little. -- Ian Anderson
My first book was called, 'Mountain, Get Out of My Way,' where I did an autobiographical sketch, if you will, looking back at myself and looking back at things in my life, and juxtaposing them against things that are happening in other people's lives and trying to be motivational. -- Montel Williams
I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore. -- Jason Isbell
Friends and family do not believe you write fiction. They truly believe that every word you write is either autobiographical or based on them. I once had a character say that she never wanted to be invited to another children's birthday party, and I never received another children's birthday party invitation ever again. -- Liane Moriarty
I was influenced by autobiographical writers like Henry Miller, and I had actually done some autobiographical prose. But I just thought that comics were like virgin territory. There was so much to be done. It excited me. I couldn't draw very well. I could write scripts and storyboard style using stick figures and balloons and captions. -- Harvey Pekar
All art is autobiographical. -- Federico Fellini
All literature, is, finally autobiographical. -- Jorge Luis Borges
All fiction is autobiographical fantasy. -- James Joyce
Theology, like fiction, is largely autobiographical. -- Frederick Buechner
All forms of landscape are autobiographical, -- Charles Wright
All of my songs are autobiographical. -- Taylor Swift
Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait. -- Lucian Freud
Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction. -- William S. Burroughs
Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical. -- Terry McMillan
I think music as we know it, is autobiographical. -- Julius Hemphill
Everything is autobiographical, and nothing is autobiographical. That's fiction. -- Lisa Unger
I'd liked my first record, it was autobiographical and beautiful. -- Lana Del Rey
All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent. -- Jeanne Moreau
All art is autobiographical. You can only create what you are. -- Dale Carnegie
'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographical. -- Colm Toibin
Many of the poems weave autobiographical elements with fabular or mythic materials. -- Anna Journey
I wouldn't say 'Frances Ha' is autobiographical, but it's definitely very personal. -- Noah Baumbach
All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction. -- P. D. James
Though my stories aren't autobiographical, I do sometimes use things from my life. -- Kim Edwards
The fiction is not autobiographical. Maybe to some extent it is, of course. -- Paul Auster
Poets can't resist the dramatic pull of their lives and so inevitably write autobiographical verse. -- John Barton
All of my films have been autobiographical - it's all I've got to go on. -- Ira Sachs
Just because I write in the first person doesn't mean that all my songs are autobiographical. -- Thalia Zedek
It is so common to write autobiographical fiction in which your own experience is thinly disguised. -- David Leavitt
I think my painting is so autobiographical if anyone can take the trouble to read it. -- Lee Krasner
There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there. -- Donald Barthelme
Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be. -- Jeffrey Eugenides
I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels. -- P. J. Harvey
I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels. -- P. J. Harvey
The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than 'The Metamorphosis'. -- Jonathan Franzen
The subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality and involvement, really. -- Lucian
The autobiographical doesn't interest me. I could think of few things less interesting than rooting about in my life. -- John Berger
Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state. -- Paul Schrader
'Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state. -- Paul Schrader
I think there might be some pressure released while I'm doing autobiographical work, but afterwards everything remains the same. -- Paul Auster
I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing. -- Natalie Merchant
'Nil By Mouth' was a bit autobiographical, but as I always pointed out at the time, that's not my dad. -- Gary Oldman
You can look at my autobiographical pieces as source books... But, you see, my fiction doesn't revolve around autobiographical questions. -- Paul Auster
There [in The Kite Runner] certainly are, as is always the case with fiction, autobiographical elements woven through the narrative. -- Khaled Hosseini
All art is autobiographical - if it's not, it's not going to quicken on-stage, and it's not going to come alive. -- Constantin Stanislavski
It'd be tricky to read into my lyrics - some are autobiographical, but sometimes I just like the sound of words. -- Max Tundra
One function of the imagination in autobiographical writing is to allow the writer to try out different versions of the self. -- Marilyn Chandler McEntyre
In each of my characters there is a little of me. Not strictly autobiographical but a little piece of my soul. -- Dario Argento
The stories that I want to tell are completely, well somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems. -- Nicole Holofcener
What's happening in Russia is devoid of autobiographical interest for me. Maybe it's egocentric. Whatever it is, feel free to use it. -- Joseph Brodsky
In a way, 'Billy Elliot' was autobiographical. I can't dance, but I think his dancing was me discovering about writing and literature. -- Lee Hall
Each one of my films is personal; each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like directors who do that. -- Jason Reitman
The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly. -- Paul Auster
The stories that I want to tell are completely, well, somewhat autobiographical. It's completely based on my own self-absorption issues and problems. -- Nicole Holofcener
I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life. -- Stephen Daldry
Many of the comedies I had made in Sweden were slightly based on semi-autobiographical experiences, so adapting novels was a very different experience. -- Lasse Hallstrom
I always sing them as though they are autobiographical, even if they're not, and most of my songs do come from something about me. -- Ronee Blakley
I do think all art is autobiographical, and I do think I know quite a bit about women. I don't know anything about men. -- Gloria Vanderbilt
Everything is autobiography, even if one writes something that is totally objective. The fact that it's a subject that seizes you makes it autobiographical. -- Lisel Mueller
Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue. -- Cate Marvin
There seems to be a tremendous desire among many people now to know authors and how they work, to know what's autobiographical and what isn't. -- Alice Mattison
What I write is very personal, but not autobiographical. It's more 'thematically personal' - what's up in my life in terms of themes at the moment. -- Josh Radnor
I am not an autobiographical writer. I'll take little elements here and there from things that I've actually experienced-counting eyelashes on a sleeping beauty, for example. -- Michael Stipe
The materials of true poetry are always humble, absolutely idiosyncratic, the autobiographical tatters that, in gifted hands, are made into the memoir that fits us all. -- Patricia Hampl
Everything is personal - the poems and the crime novels. I have never been involved in any murders, but there are strong autobiographical elements in each. -- Sophie Hannah
Recording is more autobiographical than acting. It's me - either how I'm feeling then or once felt at some point in my life. It's all me. -- Janet Jackson
True stories, autobiographical stories, like some novels, begin long ago, before the acts in the account, before the birth of some of the people in the tale. -- Harold Brodkey
I've never written an autobiographical novel in my life. I've never touched upon my life. I've never written a single scene that I can say took place. -- Bret Easton Ellis
Sometimes when people look at the work I've done with my family, they think it's autobiographical. But it really isn't. It's more about the idea of family. -- Ari Marcopoulos
Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight. -- Jessica Savitch
I read a lot of autobiographical stories, and I write plays and prose. And I play piano and cello. A lot of my downtime is devoted to that. -- Alexis Dziena
The autobiographical self is built on the basis of past memories and memories of the plans that we have made; it's the lived past and the anticipated future. -- Antonio Damasio
People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination -- Curtis Sittenfeld
People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination. -- Curtis Sittenfeld
When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level. -- Ben Marcus
The First Man is completely autobiographical. The mother [Albert Camus] describes is the woman I knew, and she was exactly as he describes her. And this teacher really existed. -- Catherine Camus
I had absolutely no trauma in my childhood. If anyone ever assumed that my books were autobiographical, they'd be sorely disappointed, because none of these things happened to me. -- Jodi Picoult
I think I had actually served my apprenticeship as a writer of fiction by writing all those songs. I had already been through phases of autobiographical or experimental stuff. -- Kazuo Ishiguro
In a regular class I don't focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material. -- Bonnie Jo Campbell
The autobiographical self has prompted extended memory, reasoning, imagination, creativity and language. And out of that came the instruments of culture - religions, justice, trade, the arts, science, technology. -- Antonio Damasio
Everything you do is autobiographical. Yeah, I grew up in a town called Redding and I had older brothers and sisters so it's all my memories of growing up. -- Ricky Gervais
I wouldn't write anything autobiographical. If you've lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it's a little bit vain, it seems to me. -- James Lee Burke
For years, I've written narrators who aren't gender-identified. When I do autobiographical stuff, that's different, obviously. But I've always tried to keep my songs as potentially not a man's thing. -- John Darnielle
It's amazing to find that so many people, who I thought really knew me, could have thought that 'Sunset Boulevard' was autobiographical. I've got nobody floating in my swimming pool. -- Gloria Swanson
The feeling of being an outsider, and the identity theme, are hardwired into me. If there's anything really autobiographical in my fiction, it's that feeling. I always feel that way. -- Dan Chaon
I use my fiction to explore my own unconscious issues. I usually don't even know what's going on with me until I'm writing. That doesn't mean my books are autobiographical. -- Janet Fitch
The first book I ever wrote was in fourth grade and it was called 'Billy's Booger.' It was an autobiographical piece about a kid who was really bad at math. -- William Joyce
The stuff I write isn't strictly autobiographical, but it's personal, if that makes any sense. It draws all these little incidents and people out of my life and then contorts them. -- Diablo Cody
In the broad sense, as a processing of everything one hears or witnesses, all fiction is autobiographical - imagination ground through the mill of memory. It's impossible to separate the two ingredients. -- Rohinton Mistry
If you think of any long-term artist that makes music throughout several decades, you would hope that it's autobiographical and a form of self-expression, and that's certainly how I approach my music. -- DJ Shadow
I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused. -- Jeffrey Eugenides
. . . All artistsâ?? work is autobiographical. Any writerâ??s work is a map of their psyche. You can really see what their concerns are, what their obsessions are, and what interests them. -- Kim Addonizio
You can't hide behind the guise of fiction. No matter how autobiographical a fictional scene is, you can always tell the reader - in protecting yourself - that you made it up. -- Rob Roberge
Because of the wonderfully positive response to 'Life's That Way,' I am considering writing some more autobiographical stuff - maybe another book. I don't know. It doesn't help that I'm lazy. -- Jim Beaver
Of necessity, the autobiographical self is not just about one individual but about all the others that an individual interacts with. Of necessity, it incorporates the culture in which the interactions took place. -- Antonio Damasio
The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal. -- Alice Munro
Even if the experience in my stories is not autobiographical and the actual plot is not autobiographical, the emotion is always somewhat autobiographical. I think there's some of me in every one of the stories. -- Katie Wech

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