Biographies Quotes

We do not learn much from learned books, but from true, sincere, human books, from frank and honest biographies. — Henry David Thoreau

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

I read a lot of biographies and books with an African background. — Wilbur Smith

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

What would become of all historical biography if it was written only with consideration for other peoples' feelings? — Johannes Brahms

It can be a long gap between the emergence of fully researched historical biographies. — Antonia Fraser

My reading is always about musical biographies. I have an innate interest and passion for that. — Nina Blackwood

For me the fascination with biography is the life of the individual in the context of history. — Rachel Holmes

Women are defined by their biography, and men are sacrosanct from their biography. — Kate Braverman

I sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in my real life. — Claire Tomalin

I enjoy reading biographies because I want to know about the people who messed up the world. — Marie Dressler

Somebody approached me about writing a biography on me, I told them they were too late. — Zach Braff

Usually I read biographies of interesting people. I am not attracted to novels - make-believe, or recreations of what people think life should be, — Lee Kuan Yew

In the late 1990s, I left the teaching field to write biographies and histories for young adults. — Charles J. Shields

A musician's biography is written wherever he performs; everybody hears what he is playing. — Sri Chinmoy

After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies. — Cynthia Ozick

Do you believe in forever?
I don't even believe in tomorrow." ~Peter Steele — Jeff Wagner

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

The pleasure of reading biography, like that of reading letters, derives from the universal hunger to penetrate other lives. — Patricia Ann Meyer Spacks

I used to devour biographies of people like Natalie Wood and Marilyn. — Emma Forrest

I like a good fun chick-lit book as much as I like historical fiction, mysteries, or biographies, I like to be well-rounded! — Erin Duffy

My father always read obituaries to me out loud, not because he was maudlin or morbid, but because they were mini biographies. — Bill Paxton

I possess every good quality, but the one that distinguishes me above all is modesty. — Charles Richet

Unloved women have no biographies
they have histories — F Scott Fitzgerald

The pa system has broken down. Society has broken down. — Theresa Sjoquist

Almost any biography will have its useful suggestions for making life a success, but none better or more unfailing than the biography of Christ. — Robert Baden-Powell

Your biography is not your destiny, your decisions are. — Tony Robbins

Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives. — Charles Wheelan

I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson) — William James

The biographer's problem is that he never knows enough. The autobiographer's problem is that he knows too much. — Russell Baker

I'm not fond of biographies. I don't like writing about myself. — Wole Soyinka

Some Western biographies are apologist, and do not portray the negative side at all. — Deepak Chopra

Live your life as if you are writing your Biography. — Keshia Chante

A life that is worth writing at all is worth writing minutely. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Food ethics are so complex because food is bound to both taste buds and taste, to individual biographies and social histories. — Jonathan Safran Foer

All of our theology must eventually become biography. — Tim Hansel

I have believed in the biographies I have written. I truly can tell you that they have influenced our society politically, culturally, socially. — Kitty Kelley

A biography should be a dissection and demonstration of how a particular human being was made and worked. — H.G.Wells

The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion. — George Steiner

I don't read biographies for moral instruction, or for a history lesson. I want to know what people are saying about me. — Bauvard

My father was highbrow: writing long biographies of Dante and stuff like that. Ghostwriting sportsman memoirs? That was sort of the lowest of the low. — David Lagercrantz

I'm interested in the truth, and unauthorized biographies are not. Yes, I would like to correct those errors someday. — Barbra Streisand

The last act in the biography of the hero is that of the death or departure. — Joseph Campbell

In the old days, they killed the messenger who brought the bad news ... a Cassandra is never popular in her time. — Alice Stewart

[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him. — Iris Origo

Biography is history seen through the prism of a person. — Louis Fischer

Biography is the best form of history. — Josh Billings

Biography is the only true history. — Thomas Carlyle

Any good biography has to got to lead you to the work. Many biographers have started out in love with their subjects and ended up hating them. — D.T. Max

He says unloved women have no biographies - they have histories." Anthony laughed again. "Surely — F Scott Fitzgerald

Each second of every time has its own story and history to be filed. — Auliq Ice

For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent. — Alfred Nobel

Inthehistorian'sview biography isa kindoffrogspawn it takes ten thousand biographies to make one small history. — Michael Holroyd

History - a biography of a few stout and earnest persons — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've had three biographies made about my life so people know an awful lot about me. — David Cassidy

Next to the Holy Scriptures, the greatest aide to the life of faith may be Christian biographies. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

You ask whether I am going over to the history of science ... no, I am not as old as that. — Christopher Kelk Ingold

I would recommend you watch the movie 'Jobs' starring Ashton Kutcher, if you don't have time to read Jobs's biography. — Gene Simmons

I shall be the first composer in history not to have a biography. — Pierre Boulez

Biographies are best when written chronologically. Boring people don't make for good biographies. — Deana J. Driver

If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots I would burn my [Gulliver's] Travels. — Jonathan Swift

I mainly read histories and biographies, but I'm also a big fan of Graham Swift and Thomas Hardy. — Ben Elliot

However you disguise novels, they are always biographies. — William Golding

John looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter. — John Arbuthnot

Political science without biography is a form of taxidermy. — Harold Lasswell

I love reading. I'm very much into history, novels, biographies and I have a wide range of thrillers. — Bruno Tonioli

Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon. — Walter Lippmann

May God blast anyone who writes a biography of me. — James M. Barrie

On the whole, most biographies about literary women tend to diagnose them. — Kate Zambreno

Biography cannot be separated from autobiography: that is, the life written about is inextricably entangled with the life of the biographer. — Linda Simon

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane. — Colm Toibin

I do read on holiday, but it tends to be very lowbrow. I'm into really camp biographies, and I'm a shameless fan of Jilly Cooper. — Miranda Raison

Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies. — Claire Tomalin

I like reading biographies because most of them are slightly similar, and it's voyeuristic, looking into someone's life. — Courtney Barnett

For someone who made such an enormous contribution to American literature, Mark Twain has been the subject of many books but few major biographies. — Michael Patrick Hearn

What novels do that biographies don't is get at truths by penetrating the facts, by going deeper to what's underneath fact, through invention. — Varley O'Connor

Biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier. — Erica Jong

Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography. — Tom Stoppard

I am a huge fan of biographies. What I'm always looking for is a story. I want a story I have never heard from anyone else. — Brandon Stanton

Anyone who has lived a full life has something fascinating to share with the world. — Auliq Ice

I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies. — Walter Isaacson

There won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy. — Flannery O'Connor

I got very keen on biography because I wanted to change it. I wanted to stretch the form. I think of it as a way of capturing souls. — Ann Wroe

I very rarely read any fiction. I love biographies; I read about all kinds of people. I love theology and some philosophy. — Al Sharpton

[W.H.R.] Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology; I shall be the Conrad. — Bronislaw Malinowski

Biographies are a little like marriages: You only have room in your life for one or two. — Phyllis Rose

There won't be any biographies of me, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken farm do not make for exciting copy. — Flannery O'Connor

Biographies of British pop celebrities are terrible. — Mick Jagger

Many of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography.Boswell was one ofthesmallest menthat ever lived and he has beaten them all. — Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild

I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child. — Chris Van Allsburg

Lives do not have plots, only biographies do. — Guy Davenport

I wish I had my beta-blockers handy. — James Black

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

The consolation of reading biography: Most great men have led lives even more miserable than our own. — Edward Abbey

Most people when they have autobiographies, they're not autobiographies, they're biographies written by a ghost writer. — Jeff Dunham

When you write biographies, whether it's about Ben Franklin or Einstein, you discover something amazing: They are human. — Walter Isaacson

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely. — David McCullough

On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken. — Penelope Fitzgerald

I always use primary sources, in addition to reading biographies and other materials. — Nancy Horan

When I read biographies, I skip the first thirty pages about the childhood because it doesn't seem interesting to me. — Michael Ondaatje