The Six-Word Memoir

Six words: it's not very long. But for the new book Not Quite What I Was Planning, the editors of Smith magazine asked hundred of writers, both famous and obscure, to boil down their lives to this paltry standard (Nora Ephron offered, “Secret to life: marry an Italian!” and A.J. Jacobs gave them, “Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again.”). Here are more one-liners that should have been submitted, but weren't.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I make heterosexual men wear tights.

CHARLES DICKENS

Rich people: Bad. Poor people: good.

JANE AUSTEN

Horrid, unpleasant-making chick-lit—begone, noxious legacy!

LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF

Reduced middle management: owned own press.

BERTOLT BRECHT

Life is full of lesbians, unrest.

JAMES JOYCE

Irish poor Catholic alcoholic no commas

JAMES THURBER

Women. I can't even draw them.

SAMUEL BECKETT

(Pause.) (Pause.) (Pause.) (Ties shoe.) (Pause.)

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

All my sentences: about this length.

JEAN GENET

Brought literary distinction to anal jihad.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

Sniffly neurasthenia: not exclusive to pugs.

MARGARET MITCHELL

Posthumous nightmares re Carol Burnett, drapes.

JACQUELINE SUSANN

Magisterial juxtaposition: Helen Lawson's wig, toilet.

TOM WOLFE

Bestsellers pay for constant dry cleaning.

TONI MORRISON

Backwards seem my sentences to run.

EDWARD GOREY

Horrible things happen to children nowadays.

PAT CONROY

Masterwork eclipsed by Barbra's dazzling nails?

L. RON HUBBARD

I publish even though I'm dead.

SUSAN ORLEAN

Orchid Thief, then Meryl played me.

IAN McEWAN

Formerly gothic, but, suddenly, Keira Knightley.

MALCOLM GLADWELL

Perspicacious analysis. Interdisciplinary worldview. Important hair.

DAVID MAMET

Pellucid essayistic meditations, you fuckin' fuck.

EVE ENSLER

Much to say about our vaginas.

GAEL GREENE

My vagina, too: not without incident.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Nonbeliever here. Kneeling bags my nylons.

BRET EASTON ELLIS

Cracky oblivion, Patrick Bateman: I'm fun.

JESSICA SEINFELD

That cheeseburger is actually a radish.

JOYCE CAROL OATES

Them's twisted sister bags Pulitzer, Princeton.

Constant publishing of books requires pseudonym.

Books spring from me like dew.

Wrote book while writing last sentence.

This sentence, too, methinks: somewhat dewy.

Stopping now. Awaiting call from Stockholm.