A memoir provides a record not so much of the memoirist as of the memoirist's world.

"I'm not sure this will make sense to you but I felt as though I'd turned around to look in a different direction so that I no longer faced backward toward the past but forward toward the future. And now the question confronting me was this: What would the future be."

Arthur Golden

"If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was."

Arthur Golden

"Oh I'm sure you're right,' Auntie said. 'Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears."

Arthur Golden