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 (1941–2022) American Social Critic, Essayist
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
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
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
There ain’t nothing that breaks up homes, country, and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
I don’t think anybody should write his autobiography until after he’s dead.
—Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) Polish-born American Film Producer, Businessperson
A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
No matter how brilliant you are, if your style is too intense, most people will dismiss you.
—Marty Nemko (b.1950) American Career Coach
Memoirs are the backstairs of history.
—George Meredith (1828–1909) British Novelist, Poet, Critic
We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become.
—David R. Hawkins (1927–2012) American Physician, Author
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
Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. The modern method is to vulgarize them. Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
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
History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
If we are truly prudent we shall cherish those noblest and happiest of our tendencies—to love and to confide.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I. -men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep-hole and missing laundry list school. Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
In this age of specialization, I sometimes think of myself as the last ‘generalist’ in economics, with interests that range from mathematical economics down to current financial journalism. My real interests are research and teaching…
—Paul Samuelson (1915–2009) American Economist
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
No sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavoring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Every man after his fashion.
—P. T. Barnum (1810–91) American Businessperson, Entertainer
Avoid witicisms at the expense of others.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
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
This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind… let it be something good.
—Unknown
Even if I was well – I must make myself as good a Philosopher as possible. Now I have had opportunities of passing nights anxious and awake I have found other thoughts intrude upon me. If I should die, said I to myself, I have left no immortal work behind me – nothing to make my friends proud of my memory – but I have lov’d the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember’d.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet