The first thing to be done by a biographer in estimating character is to examine the stubs of his victim’s check-books.
—Silas Weir Mitchell (1829–1914) American Neurologist, Writer
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
Biography is: a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
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
No matter how brilliant you are, if your style is too intense, most people will dismiss you.
—Marty Nemko (b.1950) American Career Coach
Monuments are the grappling-irons that bind one generation to another.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Freedom has never been free … I love my children and I love my wife with all my heart. And I would die, die gladly, if that would make a better life for them.
—Medgar Evers (1925–63) American Civil Rights Activist
I … am always glad to touch the living rock again and dip my hand in the high mountain air.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
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
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
—Richard Feynman (1918–88) American Physicist
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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
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
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
Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
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
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
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
Just as there is nothing between the admirable omelet and the intolerable, so with autobiography.
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) British Historian, Poet, Critic
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
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
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
Your descendants shall gather your fruits.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
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
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
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
There will be some trouble about ‘biography’ because I have never troubled myself to supply particulars of my early life to any writer.
—Arthur Wing Pinero (1855–1934) English Playwright, Actor
A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
I suppose that everyone of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.
—A. A. Milne (1882–1956) British Humorist, Playwright, Children’s Writer
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