Biography Quotes
More Biography Quotes
In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fiction parts should be printed in red ink, the fact parts in black ink.
Catherine Drinker bowen— 1958 In Publisher's Weekly, 24 Mar. Bowen's biographies were frequently partly fictionalized.
Lockhart's Life of Walter Scott may be said to be the most admirable biography in the English language, after Boswell's Samuel Johnson.
john gibson lockhart— Joseph Collins The Doctor Looks at Biography (New York: George H. Doran, 1925) p. 25.
But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.
john updike— On T. S. Eliot (1984) by Peter Ackroyd, in which the Eliot estate forbade quotation from Eliot’s books and letters, The New Yorker (25 March 1985)
There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
thomas carlyle— Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
There is properly no history, only biography.
ralph waldo emerson— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, History.
The art of biography Is different from Geography. Geography is about Maps, But biography is about Chaps.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley— Biography for Beginners, introduction (1905)
Scientologists are at war with a member of their own family - the outspoken niece of the church's powerful leader, David Miscavige. Jenna Hill Miscavige, 24, the daughter of David's older brother Ron, recently came out in support of Andrew Morton's "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized biography," and slammed the star for "supporting a religion that tears apart families, both in the media and monetarily." Since then, Jenna claims she's been subjected to harassment.
david miscavige— "Family Feud In Tom's Church". New York Post (NYP Holdings, Inc). February 6, 2008. Retrieved on 2010-07-03.
How gently, wisely, and justly G MYoung deals with him. That is not the way to write biography.
Dean Gooderham Acheson— Collected in David S McClellan and David C Acheson (eds) Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Gooderham Acheson (1980). OnYoung's biography Stanley Baldwin (1952).
It is unlikely that anyone will write his biography, but he will be enshrined in10,000 indexes.
Henry Southworth Allen— 1989 Of Brent Scowcroft, National Security Council adviser to George Bush. In the Washington Post, 3 Jan.
Between history and the novel stands biography, their unwanted offspring, which has brought a great embarrassment to them both.
Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd— 2002 Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography & Autobiography, 'The Case against Biography'.
Inthehistorian'sview biography isa kindoffrogspawn it takes ten thousand biographies to make one small history.
Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd— 2002 Works on Paper:The Craft of Biography & Autobiography, 'The Case against Biography'.
The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was.Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.
Bernard Malamud— 1979 Dubin's Lives.
No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey.
— 1959 The Sociological Imagination, ch.1.
Pogo Brief biography of Walt Kelly Walt Kelly at the Lambiek "Comiclopedia" Walt Kelly: Brief biography at Kirjasto (Pegasos) Official Pogo site
walt kelly— Walt Kelly Autobiography
— Deck us all with Boston Charlie
— More Pogo Links
One can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.
Bernard Malamud— Dubin's Lives (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979) p. 27
Brief biography at The Center for International Education
Eugene McCarthy— I'm Sorry I Was Right
Brief biography at the Guelph Civic Museum biography at the Dictionary of Canadian biography Online Works by John McCrae at Project Gutenberg
john mccrae— Free eBook of In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems at Project Gutenberg
This isn't a romanticized biography. It's a biography period. If here and there it resembles a romantic novel, the credit is only Garibaldi 's, not his potrayers.
indro montanelli— from the preface to Indro Montanelli e Marco Nozza, Garibaldi, BUR
Ironically, Henry James' biography comforts me & I long to make known to him his posthumous reputation he wrote, in pain, gave all his life (which is more than I could think of doing I have Ted, will have children but few friends) & the critics insulted & mocked him, readers didn't read him.
Sylvia Plath— 1958-04-22
The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.
dmitri shostakovich— Page 6 (Testimony (1979))
Obituary at The National Academies Press Nobelprize.org biography Roger W. Sperry - Autobiography The Roger W. Sperry Site
roger wolcott sperry— A Timeline of the Published Works of Roger W. Sperry
In these days a man is nobody unless his biography is kept so far posted up that it may be ready for the national breakfast-table on the morning after his demise.
Anthony Trollope— Ch. 25 (Doctor Thorne (1858))
An autobiography is only 'a sort of life' – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.
graham greene— Graham Greene, A Sort of Life, opening words.
I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer invariably finds it necessary to plaster the subject with praises, flattery, and adulation and to invest him with all the Christian graces. If autobiography, the same plan is followed, but the writer apologizes for it.
— Carolyn Wells, The Rest of My Life (1937), ch. 1
When I read the book, the biography famous, And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
— Walt Whitman in "When I Read the Book" (1867; 1871) in Leaves of Grass
For there is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also, it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
thomas carlyle— Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott, in London and Westminster Review (1838).
Live your life as if you are writing your biography.
keshia chante— Official Website (2009)
All Philosophy is biography
peter j. carroll— p. 96 (Liber Kaos (1992))
MacTutor Profile at University of St. Andrews William Thomson's biography Lord Kelvin online
william thomson— Lord Kelvin Exhibit: Image and RealityKelvin Society of Glasgow
