“Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.”

“If Nietzsche is correct, that to shame a man is to kill him, then any honest attempt at autobiography will be an act of self-destruction.”

“Autobiography is an unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.”

“An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.”

“A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however, eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest though poor.”

“Mrs Chadwick used to say the same about my English, about going round the houses. But to be honest, I like going round the houses. And as for beginning at the beginning, the reason I never start there is that I don’t know where the beginning is, and that’s the honest truth. And anyway, I’ve never known anything in my whole life that ever started at the beginning. Things aren’t like that. They usually start about halfway through, or near the end, and then work their way backwards, that’s how must things are.”