But instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.
—Federico Fellini (1920–93) Italian Filmmaker
It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.
—Italo Calvino (1923–85) Italian Novelist, Essayist, Journalist
I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, so since I’m so dim and they’re so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn’t.
—Philip Roth (1933–2018) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
The biography of a writer – or even the autobiography – will always have this incompleteness.
—V. S. Naipaul (1932–2018) Trinidadian-British Novelist, Short-story Writer
I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
—Henry Kissinger (b.1923) American Diplomat, Academician
Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of energy. I never paid such a price.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
That which resembles most living one’s life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The book is openly a kind of spiritual autobiography, but the trick is that on any other level it’s a kind of insane collage of fragments of memory.
—Jonathan Lethem (b.1964) American Novelist, Essayist
There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night… shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Every artist writes his own autobiography.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
My Turn is the distilled bathwater of Mrs. Reagan’s life. It is for the most part sweetish, with a tart edge of rebuke, but disappointingly free of dirt or particulate matter of any kind.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.
—Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933–2017) Russian Poet, Dissident
It isn’t that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that you construct a sequence of stories to bind up the facts with a persuasive hypothesis that unravels your history’s meaning.
—Philip Roth (1933–2018) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyze yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
I don’t think anybody should write his autobiography until after he’s dead.
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do—well, that’s Memoirs.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
The course of life is unpredictable… no one can write his autobiography in advance.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.
—Franklin P. Jones
The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.
—Humphrey Carpenter (1946–2005) English Children’s Books Writer, Biographer, Author, Radio Personality
My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labour and sacrifices made.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
Who ever heard, indeed, of an autobiography that was not (interesting)? I can recall none in all the literature of the world
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.
—Roald Dahl (1916–90) British Short-Story Writer, Playwright, Versifier
Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
This work somehow awakened my dormant powers of will and I began to practice self-control. At first my resolutions faded like snow in April, but in a little while I conquered my weakness and felt a pleasure I never knew before—that of doing as I willed.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
A new idea must not be judged by its immediate results.
—Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian-American Electrical Engineer, Inventor
An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–89) American Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic
All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist