In memoir, you have to be particularly careful not to alienate the reader by making the material seem too lived-in. It mustn't have too much of the smell of yourself, otherwise the reader will be unable to make it her own.

I have no sense of a model or predecessor when I write a memoir: For me, the form exists as a method of processing material that retains too many connections to life to be approached strictly and aesthetically. A memoir is a risk, a one-off, a bastard child.

If you express yourself too much, you're considered weak.

If you express yourself too much. you're overacting; if you underplay it too much, it can come across as wooden.

Be careful with too much joy,
it can make you numb in life.

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.