Memoirists From The United States

"Books just don’t register with this crowd. They think I lack common sense; I think they lack a part of their souls."

"The thing that mattered most in this elite new world of mine was brainpower—or, at least, the projection of brainpower. Being a decent, truthful, charitable person—none of those traditional Judeo-Christian virtues counted. Wit, verbal adroitness, a substantive intellectual background (or at least the illusion of one), and condescension toward one’s mental inferiors were the marks of distinction here. Theory, with its bizarre vocabulary of literary encryption, was just beginning to take root at Penn and other top graduate schools across the land."

"I don’t believe in identity politics in literature—or in life much, either. Indeed the current scholarly enchantment with identity politics strikes me as a more intellectual version of the warning oft heard around Sunnyside when I was growing up: “Stick with your own kind.” Family and cultural origins are crucial to self-definition, but they’re not the end of the story. I certainly don’t think that we readers only or even chiefly enjoy or understand books whose main characters mirror us. In fact, the opportunity to become who we are decidedly not—whether it’s Amis’s Dixon or Philip Roth’s Portnoy or Ellison’s Invisible Man or Kafka’s beetle—is one of the greatest gifts reading offers. Women readers get to serve on that floating boy’s club, the Pequod; male readers get to step into Elizabeth Bennet’s shoes and teach Mr. Darcy the dance of humility; readers of either gender who are not African American get to crawl toward freedom alongside Toni Morrison’s Sethe. One of the most magical and liberating things about literature is that it can transport us readers into worlds totally unlike our own."

"“Mr. Wonderful isn’t just going to knock on the door,” a girlfriend once said, chiding me. “Why not?” I thought. That’s the way people often meet in books—effortlessly, without guile or strategizing."

"In our daily lives, where we’re bombarded by the fake and the trivial, reading serves as a way to stop, shut out the noise of the world, and try to grab hold of something real, no matter how small."

"I think, consciously or not, what we readers do each time we open a book is to set off on a search for authenticity. We want to get closer to the heart of things, and sometimes even a few good sentences contained in an otherwise unexceptional book can crystallize vague feelings, fleeting physical sensations, or, sometimes, profound epiphanies."

"We read literature for a lot of reasons, but two of the most compelling ones are to get out of ourselves and our own life stories and—equally important—to find ourselves by understanding our own life stories more clearly in the context of others’."

"As I reread these Catholic autobiographies and novels, their odd pridefulness became clearer to me. Much of the Catholic juvenilia I so dearly remembered preached a cover story of self-denial along with a covert sermon about the spiritual and worldly superiority that would result from this self-denial. Writhe and shine."

"Jane has learned that there is a fate more terrible than solitude: it’s solitude in the company of a husband who essentially misunderstands you."

"As someone from our adoption agency said to us before we left, “You may have been waiting for your daughter for a long time, but she has not been waiting for you.”"

"Angels in the house always die in the books they preside over because early ascension into heaven is their reward—and because their goodness makes them boring."

"The best Dorothy Parker-like riposte to nosy questions about adoption was uttered by a friend of a friend of mine on a New York City bus. This white mother and her Chinese baby daughter were riding up Madison Avenue when an older woman got on, sat down across from them, and barked out: “Is her father Chinese?” “I don’t know,” the mother replied. “It was dark.”"

"Such is the power of words, of writing, of books. Words you loved and will always yearn for. They can inspire you with possibilities you otherwise would have never imagined; they can fill your head with misleading fantasies. They can give you back your seemingly seamless past and place it right alongside your chaotic present. “But that only happens in books,” my mother, pretty much immune to the power of the written word, would say. Exactly. That’s why I can’t stop reading them."

"It's a very strange time of life. I go on a lot of long walks. I stopped watching television for a year so I wouldn't avoid my feelings. All I read are self-help books. And when I go to parties, I corner divorced people and badger them for details about what this was like for them and how they got through it. Divorce is like my own personal disaster porn."

"My whole life I had done my best to uphold those rigid tenets—I believed obedience would get me what I thought I wanted: a temple marriage to another Mormon...And then it really hit me: I wasn't a virgin anymore. That part of my identity was gone, and I had to face the fact that, at 28, I had no idea who I was...And though I'm still struggling with my faith (and hadn't told my parents the news before publishing this essay forced me to!), I'm the same Elna I've always been. Now I realize that those were just things I made up to scare myself, to keep me from having to deal with the real questions of what was happening in my life. I don't regret losing my virginity, but I also don't regret waiting. I know now that it's a very personal journey."

"I also hear another reassuring voice. Someday Elna, it says, you will look around the room at your husband and children and the rich, full life you've built for yourself. And you will be so proud of the choices you've made. That's the voice I'm listening to."

"When I’m stuck on a particular story I go back to an Allen Ginsberg line that has always helped: “Notice what you notice.” I close my eyes and try to remember all the things I noticed as it was happening. This opens up my memory and helps me bridge the gap between what’s in my head and what’s on the page."

"Earlier this week, I made some comments about that in a conversation with Chris, I said that the biggest terror threat in this country comes from radicals on the far right, primarily white men. That angered some people. But let’s put emotion aside and look at the cold hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming."

"This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable. I think it’s the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime. [...] Nikki Haley isn't in her prime, sorry. A woman is considered to be in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s."

"Amazing. I thought this was some sort of joke quote taken out of context but no... it’s just Don Lemon being a moron. Unfortunately this is how so many leftists actually think. Disgusting! Imagine the outrage if you changed “white men” with any other demographic?"

"We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them. There is no travel ban on them. There is no ban on -- you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no white guy ban. So, what do we do about that?"

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."

"Adam, we’re going to have lunch together next week, just you and I, and nobody else. And I want you to tell me all about your family... Adam, I just want to be your friend."

"Mrs. Carruthers, I'm going to be an impact on this world."

"I am sure that my codes of life may be very different from yours, but how do you know that trust, compassion, and beauty will not make this world a better place to be in and this life a better one to live? My codes may seem like a fantasy that can never be reached, but test them for yourself, and see the kind of effect they have in the lives of people around you. You just may start a chain reaction."

"It's not about that for me. I'm not trying to go out there and convert people. I just want to be an example. I want to live my life for God, and let other people take from that whatever they want."

"It's hard to be desperate, when you are dead."

"If you had to make a list of the top 5 things most important to you, what would you put? Here's mine 1. God 2. Family 3. friends 4. my future 5. myself."

"I can see him. I know that God is real. I know it in my heart. You can only believe in what you know to be true. You know your own truth. I know mine. Everyone should be able to find that within themselves."

"There is a God and I'm going to serve him for the rest of my life."

"Rachel Scott, good to meet you, friend."

"It's like I have a heavy heart and this burden upon my back...but I don't know what ti is. There is something in me that makes me want to cry...and I don't even know what it is. Things have definitely changed. Last week was so hard...besides missing Breakthru...I lost all of my friends at school. Now that I have begun to "walk my talk," they make fun of me. I don't even know what I have done. I don't really have to say anything, and they turn me away. I was talking to [REDACTED] and I realized so much. I know what they're thinking every time I make a decision to resist temptation and follow God. They talk behind my back and call me "the preacher's church-going girl." Now [REDACTED] loves to drink. I used to drink with her some, but since I've stopped she thinks that I am such a loser, and that God is just a phase for me. I have no more personal friends at school. But you know what? I am not going to apologize for speaking the name of Jesus, I am not going to justify my faith to them, and I am not going to hide the light that God has put me into. If I have to sacrifice everything... I will. I will take it. If my friends have to become my enemies for me to be with my best friend Jesus, then that’s fine with me. I always knew that being a Christian is having enemies, but I never thought that my "friends" were going to be those enemies. It's all good, I'm just a loner now at school. I just wish that someone from Breakthru went to my school."

"Faith brings peace. Faith brings joy."

"These hands belong to Rachel Joy Scott and will someday touch millions of people's hearts."

"Labels are for filing. Labels are for clothing. Labels are not for people."

"I've been asked who I would pay to watch to play tennis, and Roger would be one of the few."

"I advocate eating nutritious food (I'm a vegetarian), working out, being in top form mentally and physically."

"Whoever said, "It's not whether you win or lose that counts", probably lost."

"People who are rich want to be richer, but what's the difference? You can't take it with you. The toys get different, that's all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It's all relative."

"[On transgender athletes who have not transitioned and retain male genitals.] It’s insane and it’s cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair."

"[After The Sunday Times article dated 17 February 2019.] The media, terrified of being on the wrong side of history, responded predictably, and headlines said that Navratilova was "criticised over 'cheating' trans women comments", although this criticism came largely from a relatively unknown cyclist, Rachel McKinnon, with a history of incendiary remarks (such as that lesbians such as Navratilova should "get over their genital hang-ups" when it comes to choosing sexual partners). When Navratilova published a further blog last weekend, firmly restating her position, the headlines again suggested wrongdoing on her part, such as the BBC’s "Navratilova sorry for transgender 'cheat' language as she re-enters debate". What got notably less media attention was the support for Navratilova from other elite athletes, including Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, Sally Gunnell, Paula Radcliffe, Kelly Holmes and Nicola Adams. Arguments about gender are now so vicious that most high-profile people would rather eat their hair than speak out."

"He returned to New York and Fremont thought Jack did what he always said any down-and-outer should do, "fill his pockets with rocks and take a header into the bay."

"To say I was shocked, stunned, or humiliated on entering the penitentiary would not be the truth. It would not be true in nine cases out of any ten. It would be true if a man were picked up on the street and taken directly to a penitentiary, but that isn't done He is first thrown into a dirty, lousy, foul-smelling cell in some city prison, sometimes with an awful beating in the bargain, and after two or three days of that nothing in the world can chock, stun, or humiliate him. He is actually happy to get removed to a county jail where he can perhaps get rid of the vermin and wash his body. By that time, convicted, and sentenced, he has learned from other prisoners just what the penitentiary is like and just what to do and what to expect. You start doing time the minute the handcuffs are on your wrists. The first day you are locked up is the hardest, and the last day the easiest. There comes a feeling of helplessness when the prison gates wallow you up - cut you off from the sunshine and flowers out in the world - but that feeling soon wears away if you have guts. Some men despair. I am sure I did not."

"I fell in with a wolfish-eyed girl of the streets, hungry and shivering in a doorway, so shabby that men would not throw an appraising glance at her. Like Julia she was almost “ready for the river.”"

"You Can't Win is (...) an autobiography of a reformed criminal. It points a sufficiently obvious moral, yet one that too many at the present day are prone to forget. A deeper question is also raised, and that is regarding the validity of the practical aims and ideals of the majority of people in our modern world."

"Your capable beggar on the street does not say "please." He rips off his spiel in such exact and precise language that he gets your dime without it. You so admire his "art" that you do not miss the "please" because he knows you do not use it except when you want the mustard."

"Jamboree author Black is a graduate of five penitentiaries, was pried loose from a 25-year prison term and helped to overcome his addiction to narcotics by mustachioed Editor Fremont Older of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. This play is a dramatization of Black's book You Can't Win. "Every character in this play is drawn from the personal experiences of Jack Black during his years as a criminal or as a prisoner. The types are real and these people actually lived."

"Jack had been a sort of a reign of terror...just before the earthquake and fire of 1906. Every crime committed in San Francisco during the first three months of that year was ascribed to Jack Black."

"My style was to absorb all the data I could to make the best-informed decision possible, sometimes to the point of over-analysis."

"What we did was unprecedented, but what is less well understood is that we had no choice."