Autobiography Quotes

• 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

  Matter, Dirt, Kind

  Barbara Ehrenreich (1990). “WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES”, Pantheon

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• When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in seven-league boots.

  Nikola Tesla

  Passion, League, Goal

  Nikola Tesla (2014). “My Inventions Nikola Tesla's Autobiography”, p.26, Lulu.com

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• My autobiography was simply the story of my life.

  Sidney Poitier

  Stories, Story Of My Life

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• An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Memories

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• All autobiography is self-indulgent.

  Daphne du Maurier

  Book, Self, Self Indulgent

  Anne Edwards, David G. McCullough, Vance Oakley Packard, Andrew Sinclair, Daphne Du Maurier (1978). “Vivien Leigh: a biography”

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• I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

  Samuel Goldwyn

  Funny, Witty, Book

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• 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

  Interesting, Literature, World

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• I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Mistake, Book, Pages

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• 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

  Art, Giving, Important

  Evelyn Waugh's review of Stephen Spender "World within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender" in "The Tablet", May 5, 1951.

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• Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have at the moment of commemoration.

  Walter Benjamin

  Years, Here I Am, Space

  "Selected Writings: 1927-1934".

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• Every artist writes his own autobiography.

  Havelock Ellis

  Art, Writing, Architecture

  New Spirit (1890) "Tolstoi"

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• 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

  Ideas, History, Stories

  Philip Roth (1989). “The facts: a novelist's autobiography”, Vintage

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• 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

  Smart, Writing, Fiction

  FaceBook post by Philip Roth from Aug 17, 2014

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• Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.

  W. H. Auden

  Character, Self, Two

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("Hic et Ille"), (p. 96), 1962.

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• Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.

  John Berger

  Orphan, Form

  John Berger (2008). “Selected Essays of John Berger”, p.765, Vintage

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• 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

  Memories, People, Done

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.341, University of Chicago Press

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• I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography.

  Steven Wright

  Funny, Inspiration, Writing

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• An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.

  Quentin Crisp

  Funny, Missing, Lasts

  Naked Civil Servant (1968) ch. 29

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• Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful.

  George Orwell

  Disgraceful, Trusted

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.210, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

  Salvador Dali

  Habit, Revelations, Democratic

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• 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

  Funny, Witty, Liars

  Groucho Marx (2009). “Groucho And Me”, p.28, Da Capo Press

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• A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.

  Fawn M. Brodie

  Memories, Past, Men

  "No Man Knows My History". Book by Fawn M. Brodie, Ch. 19, 1945.

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• This sounds like my autobiography, but I thought this would be a good time to sound off about myself, as I think that I have been silent too long about my views and opinions.

  Bob Kane

  Thinking, Views, Long

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• I was trying to write an autobiography using prints and patterns that reference emotional, psychological, and personal development in my work, as a person growing up, figuring out who I was. I used fabrics to stand in for occurrences.

  Jim Hodges

  Growing Up, Writing, Emotional

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• 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

  Disappointment, Empty Life, Achievement

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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