Quotes & Sayings About My Biography

Why should I be limited by my own biography? — Eleanor Antin

I'm not spitting in my own soup, I love having spent my life thinking about these things-but you don't have to know anything about his life, even though I've just written a biography! — Stephen Greenblatt

Biography is the only true history. — Thomas Carlyle

When Margot died after a car accident in which my sister was also seriously injured in November 1970, I sat on a hill behind a friend's house in Greymouth trying to get my head around having to identify the body of my university sweetheart. Yvonne was the only one who came with condolences (Paul Caffyn) — Theresa Sjoquist

As a child, I read science fiction, but from the very beginnings of my reading for pleasure, I read a lot of non-fictional history, particularly historical biography. — Norman Spinrad

There began to appear before my romantic eyes ... a vast and complicated network of espionage, terror, sadism and hate, from which no one, official or private, could escape. — Erik Larson

In my small way I became an integral part of the pottery movement, and added fuel to the fire which consumed New Zealand and and swept pottery to the forefront of the of the fifties and sixties. — Theresa Sjoquist

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

To me, that's the ultimate isolation - to be separated from my own mind. — James Patterson

I push back against a deeply-entrenched tendency in American culture to label quickly and no longer even examine the labels that were initially stamped on a person. I don't have a problem with any of my "hyphenated" biography - I don't have any problem with that at all. The world would be a better place if our thread of hyphenation were truly embraced beyond mere naming and category. — Fady Joudah

The library of my elementary school had this great biography section, and I read all of these paperback biographies until they were dog-eared. The story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Curie and Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver and on and on and on. — Christine Quinn

I had spent many nights in the jungle looking for game, but this was the first time I had ever spent a night looking for a man-eater. The length of road immediately in front of me was brilliantly lit by the moon, but to right and left the overhanging trees cast dark shadows, and when the night wind agitated the branches and the shadows moved, I saw a dozen tigers advancing on me, and bitterly regretted the impulse that had induced me to place myself at the man-eater's mercy. I lacked the courage to return to the village and admit I was too frightened to carry out my self-imposed task, and with teeth chattering, as much from fear as from cold, I sat out the long night. As the grey dawn was lighting up the snowy range which I
was facing, I rested my head on my drawn-up knees, and it was in this position my men an hour later found me fast asleep; of the tiger I had neither heard nor seen anything. — Jim Corbett

Mary Lovell's Straight On Till Morning: The Life of Beryl Markham was the first biography to bring Beryl to light, in 1987, and her pioneering efforts and careful research have been crucial to my own and other writers' abilities to imagine Beryl's life. Mary Lovell also compiled Beryl Markham's stories in The Splendid Outcast, a collection that wouldn't have been available otherwise, and for that — Paula McLain

I do not think my life would make a very interesting book,' I say. 'I feel I can speak with a certain amount of authority here. — Paul Murray

I hear you're a writer,' said 2040..."What are you writing about?'

Not liking to discuss my writing with strangers, I had been privately auditioning possible conversation stoppers, but I didn't think that I would ever have the nerve to use one. But now, in the most awkward of situations, it seemed appropriate.

'Actually, I'm writing a biography,' I responded casually. 'About a man in Alaska who makes foie gras from penguins. — Phoebe Damrosch

Behind the door was where bad things happen. No matter how many blankets I used or extra pairs of panties I wore. None of it mattered. The monster always came. His face obscured in the shadows, partially hidden behind the cloak rack. Hot breath breathing over my face as soon as I closed my eyes. — Hannah Baston

I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map ... nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with strange paintings and floral spreads and cable television that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Benjamin's terms, I have lost myself though I know where I am. Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on vista that has escaped me these many years says to me that I never did know where I was, even when I was home. — Rebecca Solnit

My first big acting performance was in the Marilyn Monroe biography piece, and it required frontal nudity. I talked to Mira Sorvino, my co-star, about how nervous I was because I didn't know how my mom would react. She said, 'Can I be completely honest with you? I've seen your mom in interviews, and she seems pretty screwed up. I don't think there's much you could do to shock a broad like that.' And from that moment on it was big nipples to the wind! — Ashley Judd

I decided I had to find out if it was my scene or not. So I stepped in at the deep end. It leads you to survive or drown. Very often you survive. — Theresa Sjoquist

I have heard the most fantastical gossip about myself and each time I thought, "If only my life were that exciting, fun, outrageous, and sexy". Then again my memory wasn't so sharp when I took drugs. Some of what was said about me might be true. At worst it gave me jerk-off material. — Aiden Shaw

I have my own biography of Gram Parsons - I don't want to be part of somebody else's. — Emmylou Harris

My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material. — Reza Aslan

I can find my biography in every fable that I read. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My dear, it is very nice here, every day two or three persons are stabbed by soldiers in the city; there are daily arrests, but apart from these it is pretty gay.. — Rosa Luxemburg

I suppose I'm proudest of my novels for what's imagined in them. I think the world of my imagination is a richer and more interesting place than my personal biography. — John Irving

I feel I have to live a little longer before I write a sequel to my auto biography which covers my experiences up until October 1991. — Holly Johnson

Reading wasn't an attempt to educate myself. It was my chief escape from a world that, although gorgeous in landscape and rich with mountain culture, didn't provide what I needed - the promise of adventure, a life beyond the perimeter of hills. I often fantasized that I'd been adopted and had mysterious powers such as flying or teleportation. Books offered the promise of a world in which misfits like me could flourish. Within the pages of a novel, I was unafraid: of my father, of dogs, snakes, and the bully across the creek; of older boys who drove hot rods close enough to make me jump in the ditch; of armed men parked near the bootlegger. — Chris Offutt

I was sixteen and my mother was about to throw me out of the house forever, for breaking a very big rule, even bigger than the forbidden books. The rule was not just No Sex, but definitely No Sex With Your Own Sex. — Jeanette Winterson

Today I'm aware of all the times I have said no to opportunities God has placed before me because I think I'm not rich enough, equipped enough, talented enough, strong enough, or crazy enough to say yes. All the times I have mistaken good things for bad. All the times I have allowed the opinions of an ignorant majority to guide my thinking instead of looking to Jesus and his heart in the matter. I wonder how many times we, his children, choose a comfortable no over a terrifying yes - the kind of yes that will lead us to the only place we should ever long to be: in the arms of Jesus. — Heather Avis

The truth was loose: I was the son of a son of a bitch, an ancestral prodigy born to clobber my way through loathsome dungheaps of idiot labor. My genes were cocked and loaded. I was a meteor, a gunslinger, a switchblade boomerang hurled from the pecker dribblets of my forefathers' untainted jalopy seed. I was Al Kaline peggin' home a beebee from the right field corner. I was Picasso applyin' the final masterstroke to his frenzied Guernica. I was Wilson Pickett stompin' up the stairway of the Midnight Hour. I was one blazin' tomahawk of m-fuggin' eel snot. Graceful and indomitable. Methodical and brain-dead. The quintessential shoprat. The Rivethead. — Ben Hamper

Each of us needs an adequate biography: How do I put together into a coherent image the pieces of my life? How do I find the basic plot of my story? — James Hillman

Oftentimes, if a writer really gets her hooks into me, I'll want to read interviews, or listen to an interview, or read a literary biography or a memoir of some kind. And doing so almost always deepens my enjoyment of the author and her work. — Brad Listi

I dreamed of going to the top of Mount Elum like Alexander the Great to touch Jupiter and even beyond the valley. But, as I watched my brother running across the roof, flying their kites and skillfully flicking the strings back and forth to cut each other's down, I wondered hoe free a daughter could ever be. — Malala Yousafzai

When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read. — George Vecsey

I rely on my iPad for on-the-go entertainment. I stock it with TV shows, like 'Parks and Recreation' and the British version of 'The Office.' I'm reading a Charles Manson biography on it too, since I'm weirdly into true crime. — Phoebe Tonkin

When I'm dead, somebody can write my biography. I wrote a national hymn, an anthem, which I don't want to present to that country. But I have a deal with my wife - when I'm dead, she should offer it, because then I'm safe. — Giorgio Moroder

When I was writing my biography of LeBon," Bob Nye told me, "he seemed to me the biggest asshole in the whole of creation. — Jon Ronson

Maybe he'd never come acrross anybody as well versed at objectifying body parts as I was. In my defense, this was an occupational hazard; one of the tricks of my trade was the ability to work with whatever was at hand. Over the years I'd learned to pinpoint my focus to the width of a pubic hair if there was nothing else to work with. — Aiden Shaw

I have a piano in my kitchen. I read a great biography about Tom Waits that said that he had a piano in his kitchen; he had a grand piano in his kitchen. And I thought, 'Well, if Tom Waits has one, then I must.' — Jamie Cullum

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important. — Peter Ackroyd

One of the most arrogant undertakings, to my mind, is to write the biography of a man which pretends to go beyond external facts and gives the inmost motives. One of the most mendacious is autobiography. — Theodor Haecker

I'd be happy to have my biography be the stories of my dogs. To me, to live without dogs would mean accepting a form of blindness. — Thomas McGuane

I want the 'Book of Basketball' to do well if only so I can shop an absolutely ridiculous topic for my next book: like, a book about basketball cards, or an unauthorized biography of A. J. Daulerio. — Bill Simmons

What we call happiness is sometimes the accordance between our life and circumstances,our biography and history ,our personal aspirations and historical currents .If i look at things that way,I can say : I was born too early to be happy.But birth is one of the many things we do not get to choose.It's part of our destiny.
If I were offered life again,I would refuse it. But ,If i had to be born again. I would choose my life — Alija Izetbegovic

I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long. — Margot Asquith

I'd prefer people read about Churchill and how he wasn't overwhelmed by Nazi Germany. Amazing; that the morale of a country rested on one person's shoulders. Extraordinary people carried that country through its darkest hours; truly inspirational. I suppose that's my theme. Whether it's a biography or a movie; whether it's fictional or true, I'm inspired by people doing great things. — Larry Ellison

A form of art that I like is portraiture. I've been thinking about portraiture, and its relationship to writing and literature, biography and autobiography, and so that will be my next thing. — Robert Dessaix

I don't see that my age has anything to do with what is between the covers of my book, any more than the fact that I am right-handed. It's a fact of my biography, but it's uninteresting. — Eleanor Catton

I was born with my eyes turned inward. — David Joseph Cribbin

Others are writing my biography, and let it rest as they elect to make it. I have lived my life, well and ill, always less well than I wanted it to be but it is, as it is, and as it has been; so small a thing, to have had so much about it! — Clara Barton

Every time i see a butterfly, it reminds me of how precious life can truly be. To be able to turn from a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly and fly away so freely and gracefully wherever she may please, without no one in the world to tell her what to do. I wait for that special moment in time when I get to live freely, without no worries, pain or tears. I just want to be happy. I want the laughter in the air without all of the pain. One special day I'll get to live my life just like that beautiful butterfly. I will no longer feel blue inside. — Michelle Knight

If after I die, people want to write my biography, there is nothing simpler. They only need two dates: the date of my birth and the date of my death. Between one and another, every day is mine. — Fernando Pessoa

I am Orafoura, but you can call me Jarod Kintz. I'm fairly proud to proclaim that Dora J. Arod has me on her short list of "World's worst writers." The list couldn't get any shorter, because I'm the only name on it. I should tell her to stop calling it a list, and change the title to "World's worst writer." If you're wondering why I rate all my work one star, it's because the rating system doesn't have a zero star option, or better yet, go into negative numbers. — Orafoura

While some people are good at painting, playing an instrument or singing, I have been told more than once I am good at storytelling. I hope that you enjoy my stories as I recall them. — Eric Arrouze

The whole value of history, of biography, is to increase my self-trust, by demonstrating what man can be and do. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

But I was eventually okay. And you will be okay too. Here's why. I had already made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with tons of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks. — Amy Poehler

My first biography was 'Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir.' To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedias. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there. — David A. Adler

My first biography written in '73 was not 'Journey To The Moon.' It was 'Return To Earth.' Because for me, that was the more difficult task - disappointment. — Buzz Aldrin

I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term. — Robert Caro

The welfare state may be well intended but it is a Ponzi scheme. People are paying in to support the people who previously paid in, but there isn't enough coming in, so it will collapse, like eery Ponzi scheme does. By the way, I had the author of a biography on Ponzi on my show. Ponzi was a good guy. He just got messed up and so he had to keep collecting money to pay the other people who paid in earlier. He didn't mean bad.
Ponzi turns out to be somewhat of a Saint. He heard of a girl who was in a fire, and he gave his own skin for her skin grafts. A total stranger.
Ponzi is the quintessential Liberal. Means well, and creates something destructive. — Dennis Prager

I was a biography in constant motion, memory to the marrow of my bones. — Philip Roth

It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work better. I am ever-vigilant against the passive and against jargon, both of which are so insidious. — Gretchen Rubin

River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it."
After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it."
"We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes. — Gavin Edwards

It's the only dish I serve my craziness for color in. — Josef Albers

I don't think my writing has much to do with my age. For me, my biography is more about what I was reading at what age. It's more of an intellectual thing of wanting to be free to write and think without being too bound by categorisation. I don't think I'm made for these times; I feel more like an old-fashioned writer. — Helen Oyeyemi

I have my first review this is exciting
I write a passage to introduce the book and want to share it on SNS .
As below words,hope you can give me some advice.

" Want to share a book with all of you,my friends .So luck to read this book.
He is not a famous writer but all story is he's real experience,how to be abuse by his mother,
how to overcome learn disablity ,how to be a good father in life and how to get a middle class life
in US now.The purpose to write this book is that he want to help someone who have same experience
with him and encourage those people,you are not alone,there are many people have experienced
similar things,you can overcome it and you deserved a good life. This book can help us to avoid many
mistake when we as a parent . — Shawn Woods

When I talk to friends and editors about possible projects, especially about projects that might come with a significant cash advance, they usually suggest a biography. Sometimes I'm tempted, but the prospect of spending years researching and writing about someone else's life offends my vanity. — Michael Dirda

I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work. — Charles Babbage

Mom brought me some peanut butter cookies and a biography of Judy Garland. She told me she thought my problem was that I was too impatient, my fuse was too short, that I was only interested in instant gratification. I said, "Instant gratification takes too long." The glib martyr. — Carrie Fisher

...That is my biography from the first day of my chess life to the present.

JOURNALIST. And your plans.
PLAYER. To play! — Mikhail Tal

I remember once asking Grandma about a book she was reading, a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and how she answered me: this was the first conversation of my life that concerned a book, and 'the life of the mind' - and now, such subjects have become my life. — Joyce Carol Oates

What's bad about my biography? My father was a worker, my brothers, too, and I have always honestly served my country. — Ivan Bagramyan

The only way to move forward is to focus on the good in your life and the good that you are doing for others and yourself. My past has shown me things in life, others and myself that I wouldn't wish upon anyone, but I can choose to pick up the pieces and build a beautiful life for myself and help others to do the same. — Brittany Burgunder

It sometimes happens that the town child is more alive to the fresh beauty of the country than a child who is country born. My brother and I were born in London ... but our descent, our interest and our joy were in the north country'.
Quoted in The Tale of Beatrix Potter a Biography by Margaret Lane, First Edition p 32-33 — Beatrix Potter

I was born in the house my father built. — Richard M. Nixon

I have always been averse to theorizing about the art or craft of biography. Like Disraeli's biographer, Lord Blake, who offers the cautionary analogy of the biographical centipede unsure of her next step because of too much cerebration, I have made it my practice to let the facts find the theory. — David Levering Lewis

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. — Sissy Spacek

In a sense, this book is not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know. Yes, these events are true, yet sometimes they seemed to have happened to someone else, and I often felt like a curious onlooker or someone trying to remember a dream. I ignored my stand-up career for twenty-five years, but now, having finished this memoir, I view this time with surprising warmth. One can have, it turns out, an affection for the war years. — Steve Martin

I realize that I had always in my heart of hearts planned to write a biography of Marie Antoinette. — Antonia Fraser

Once undressed I felt less exposed. (...) Naked was my uniform. (...) There was no pressure to conform. — Aiden Shaw

Not enough books focus on how a culture responds to radically new ideas or discovery. Especially in the biography genre, they tend to focus on all the sordid details in the life of the person who made the discovery. I find this path to be voyeuristic but not enlightening. Instead, I ask, After evolution was discovered, how did religion and society respond? After cities were electrified, how did daily life change? After the airplane could fly from one country to another, how did commerce or warfare change? After we walked on the Moon, how differently did we view Earth? My larger understanding of people, places and things derives primarily from stories surrounding questions such as those. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I was reading William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother, dressed in my witch outfit! And you know what? It was a really good mix; it was a therapeutic mix. — Helena Bonham Carter

Why is it that places thousands of miles from my childhood village home send me back, opening the sluice-gates of the past? Well, we are all emigrants from the homeland of our childhoods. It may be, then, that the natural place to meet ourselves as children is 'abroad', and that includes the foreign country of our growing up and aging. So it is that the personal, physical feeling of departure from the time of childhood may merge in a special symbiosis with geographical departure, biography and geography resonating now on a single wavelength. — Georgi Gospodinov

Having a disability and abusive mother, I managed to graduate in college and became a purchasing manager, but my story does not stop there. My life is full of disappointments and struggles with work and relationships.

My biography will explain how my strong will kept me going and got me through the tough times in life. As a father who raised two sons and let them be themselves, he stood by their side to support and watch them succeed in life. — Shawn Woods

Was he a good father?"
To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. "No," I reply candidly. "He wasn't a good father, but he was a good man."
Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more. — Deana Martin

I think that [William] Faulkner and I each had to escape certain particulars of our lives, and we found salvation through words. I understand the Bible story of Babel so much better now. I think that moments of extremity, desires of escape, lead us to foreign languages--not those learned in schools, but those plucked from the human heart, the searing conditions of isolation. I did not have to be limited to my biography because of words, and I shared this with Faulkner, who invented new words and punctuation and expression and worlds. He utterly reshaped the world. — Tennessee Williams

The last chapter in 'Alice in Worcestershire' is called 'Writing the book'.
I started to write that 'Diary' chapter at the very beginning of the process and followed it through to the end... speaking to the reader.

My decision to do this was because I've often read autobiographies and wondered how the author felt and how it impacted them writing about painful memories that had been locked away in a deep forgotten place.
I wanted to know what was going in their 'present' life while they were writing; about the struggle with sharing their inner secrets and... I'm... inquisitive. (nosy)!

It took me over five years to finish 'Alice in Worcestershire' because sometimes, I was simply too drained to continue. Periodically, I updated the 'Diary' chapter and, thankfully, it's enthusiastically appreciated by readers. — Eskay Teel

I have had the unfortunate experience of having someone write an unauthorised biography of me. Half of it is lies and the other half is badly written. My feeling is that if I'm going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first. — Dawn French

What right does my present have to speak of my past? Has my present some advantage over my past? What "grace" might have enlightened me? except that of passing time, or of a good cause, encountered on my way? — Roland Barthes

My purpose in beginning the John Wimber biography project was to honor his rich legacy of teaching, his extraordinary character, and the positive & beneficial impact his life has had on my journey as a 'follower of Christ'. I esteem John Wimber's teachings, writing, and impact upon the Body of Christ to be equal with that of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, John F. Banks, D.L. Moody, and Leanne Payne. — R. Alan Woods

Living in China has made me appreciate my own country, with its tiny, ethnically diverse population of unassuming donut-eaters. — Jan Wong

That requires quite an imaginative leap because it's hard for me to imagine that my biography would be of much interest to anyone, and because I'm a fairly private person, the notion doesn't appeal to me. — Debra Dean

To show the American woman herself off to best advantage - that has always been my aim and that is my real biography. — Hattie Carnegie

That's great. Tell me about it. I hate my life. I'm at the point where I want to hear about other people's lives. it's like switching from fiction to biography. The beginning of the end. — Don DeLillo

Before the magisterial mess of Trevor Thomas's house, the orderly houses that most of us live in seem meagre and lifeless
as, in the same way, the narratives called biographies pale and shrink in the face of the disorderly actuality that is a life. The house also stirred my imagination as a metaphor for the problem of writing. Each person who sits down to write faces not a blank page but his own overfilled mind. The problem is to clear out most of what is in it ... The goal is to make a space where a few ideas and images and feelings may be so arranged that a reader will want to linger awhile among them, rather than to flee, as I wanted to flee from Thomas's house. — Janet Malcolm

Growing up in Fitzgerald, I lived in an intense microcosm, where your neighbor knows what you're going to do even before you do, where you can recognize a family gene pool by the lift of an eyebrow, or the length of a neck, or a way of walking. What is said, what is left to the imagination, what is denied, withheld, exaggerated-all these secretive, inverted things informed my childhood. Writing the stories that I found in the box, I remember being particularly fascinated by secrets kept in order to protect someone from who you are. That protection, sharpest knife in the drawer, I absorbed as naturally as a southern accent. At that time, I was curious to hold up to the light glimpses of the family that I had so efficiently fled. We were remote-back behind nowhere-when I was growing up, but even so, enormous social change was about to crumble foundations. Who were we, way far South? "We're south of everywhere," my mother used to lament. — Frances Mayes

I'm narrating the television series Biography. I'm still involved in my music - I have a new album out. I have an animated project in development. I'm writing a lot of things and you never know if one of them is going to become a six or seven year project. — Bill Mumy

My songs form a kind of biography or diary of my life as they are about people I have loved and people I only knew in my heart, places I have seen only for a moment and places I have lived all my life. — Justin Hayward

I've only cried at one book, but I'm too embarrassed to tell you which. It wasn't terribly intellectual. I will admit, though, to crying when I've read books aloud to my elementary class. We read a biography of Gandhi once, and it was very difficult to read the part where Gandhi was killed, because they were waiting for a happy ending. — Rebecca Makkai