" A friend of mine who is working on a memoir says, I hate the idea of writing as some kind of catharsis, because it seems like that can't possibly produce a good book.

You cannot hope to console yourself for your grief by writing, warns Natalia Ginzburg.

Turn then to Isak Dinesen, who believed that you could make any sorrow bearable by putting it into a story or telling a story about it. "

― Sigrid Nunez , The Friend