A Quote by Edmund White

In a memoir, your main contract with the reader is to tell the truth, no matter how bizarre.

Edmund White

Quote Topics

Bizarre Contract How Main Matter Memoir Reader Tell Truth Your

Quote Author

Edmund White
American - Novelist
Born: January 13, 1940

When I was writing the memoir, every page was a battle with myself because I knew I had to tell the truth. That's what the memoir form demands. I also had to figure out how much of the truth do I tell, how do I make the truth as balanced as I possibly can? How do I make these people as complicated and as human and as unique and as multifaceted as I possibly can? For me, that was the way I attempted to counteract some of that criticism.

Jesmyn Ward

In a memoir, I think, the contract implies a certain degree of truth. I think you have to be as true to your memory and your experience as you possibly can.

David Leavitt

Live your own truth and it won't matter how many lies they tell about you. The truth will prove itself.

Tony Gaskins

And okay, fair enough, but there is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.

John Green

No matter how much you tell yourself your over someone, your heart knows the truth

Lauren Barnholdt

The only rule I have in how I let characters tell stories is that they must always tell the reader their version of the truth. No one likes being outright lied to, even in fiction.

Sarah Pinborough

[Everyone needs] a woman who'll listen, take your side, tell the truth - or not, as you need it. A woman you can count on, no matter what, and who'll love you no matter how much you screw up.

Nora Roberts

I'm quite a good reader of people; I like to meet people, and I can tell if they're lying or not, and I've certainly had interviews with people in this radio show I've done that swear they've seen things or have had bizarre experiences with creatures, and so I think they're telling the truth.

Rhys Darby

Right now in American writing there is no genre as exciting as memoir - the writer can do anything, as long as it works. It's like the 1920s up in this joint. So, I'd say, experiment with how you tell the story. In the best memoir it's not the what, it's how the writer tells the what - meaning and effect through form.

Anthony Swofford

The courts are run on COMMERCIAL CONTRACT LAW and that is has NOTHING to do with any IN-LAW procedures whatsoever. So the nature of the game is to OBTAIN a CONTRACT with your OPPONENT (Adversary) so that the court can acknowledge and RATIFY the contract and SETTLE and CLOSE the case and move on and if you understand that EVERYTHING in there is happening by way of CONTRACTS instead of trying to get the truth out then MAYBE you'll get the truth to prevail by following the CORRECT procedure to get them to acknowledge the truth by CONTRACTUAL CONSENT.

Jack Smith

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 shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.

William Zinsser

How forthright does the audience want the broadcasters to be? Because when you tell your truth, there's a lot of anger that comes out. I think it's a good question to ask TV people [executives] too. How much truth do they want to be told? How much truth does the league want told? Because the truth isn't just a positive truth. If you're going to tell the truth, you would be telling a lot of positive and some negative.

Jeff Van Gundy

A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons.

Isabel Allende

Always communicate no matter how hard it is to tell someone something's wrong. It's worse not to talk about it. I learn this every few years. The truth hurts for 3 days. Lack of truth hurts your whole life.