Autobiography Quotes - Page 16

• I paint the way some people write their autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages of my journal, and as such they are valid.

  Francoise Gilot

  Art, Writing, People

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• A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

  Raymond Carver

  Imagination, Temptation, Fiction

  Raymond Carver, Marshall Bruce Gentry, William L. Stull (1990). “Conversations with Raymond Carver”, p.41, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I think anything that anyone writes thats any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

  Stephen Adly Guirgis

  Writing, Thinking

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• I always call Billy Elliot a fantasy autobiography because I never wanted to be a dancer, but I got a lot of stick from the other kids about wanting to be a writer and being interested in drama.

  Lee Hall

  Drama, Kids, Dancer

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• My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to be in wintertime; if I want to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be enclosed within walls; and I have said a hundred times that if I were put in the Bastille, there I would paint a picture of liberty.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Beautiful, Wall, Truth

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• All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Lying, Mean, Unconscious

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• Gratefully accepting the proffered honor, [to inscribe a new legal work to him] I give the leave, begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Learning, Men, Giving

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• Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Ambition, Two, Race

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• When I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three.... The little advanceI now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Education, Writing, Age

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.50, Fordham Univ Press

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• I am not a very sentimental man; and the best sentiment I can think of is, that if you collect the signatures of all persons who are no less distinguished than I, you will have a very undistinguishing mass of names.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Thinking, Names

  Abraham Lincoln, Bob Blaisdell (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations”, p.13, Courier Corporation

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• I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend me.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Humility, Relation, Wealthy

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45”, p.5, Library of America

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• [The public has] the habit now of invalidating opinions emanating from me by reference to my age and infirmities.

  James Madison

  Age, Opinion, Habit

  James Madison (1865). “Letters and other writings of James Madison”, p.355

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• Whenever I see an autobiography for sale in the book store i just flip to the about the author section. I'm like, "Done, next!"

  Demetri Martin

  Funny, Book, Humor

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• Every ist writes his own autobiography.

  Havelock Ellis

  Art, Writing

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• When you first start off, I know singers who have only been in the business just a short amount of time, and they've already written their autobiography. I didn't want to write it too soon. I wanted to live a while and write about things that I felt were important to me - growing up in Wales, and the characters that I met and listened to.

  Tom Jones

  Growing Up, Writing, Character

  "What's new, Tom Jones? The hitmaker is still finding more things to sing about". Interview with Roger Catlin, www.washingtonpost.com. September 15, 2016.

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• I do like a good mystery. I'm reading Edgar Allan Poe now. I also like autobiographies.

  James Van Praagh

  Reading, Mystery, Allan Poe

  Source: bookpage.com

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• I started writing about New Mexico in an autobiography class I was taking for school, and realized that it was very inspiring place for me.

  Liza Campbell

  Writing, School, Class

  Source: newwest.net

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• The F.B.I. was very happy with the article they produced, which was entitled, "The Black Merchants of Hate," that came out in early 1963. What's significant about that piece is that that became the template for what evolved into the basic narrative structure of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

  Manning Marable

  Hate, Narrative Structure, Black

  "The Undiscovered Malcolm X: Stunning New Info on the Assassination, His Plans to Unite the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist Movements & the 3 'Missing' Chapters from His Autobiography". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. February 21, 2005.

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• I was working within a figurative representational framework, and there was a sense of reading the painting as a transparency, or truth, or autobiography, which I think is partially the burden of artists of color - or women, or anybody who is representing a so-called minority position. Are you actually telling a true story, or your own story? You don't just get to tell a story. The readings of the work didn't necessarily conform to my own understanding of mythology, where violence and eroticism and the body and all of these different forms coexist all the time.

  Chitra Ganesh

  Reading, Artist, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I don't want to write an autobiography because I would become public property with no privacy left.

  Stephen Hawking

  Writing, Want, Privacy

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• If one loves stories, then one would naturally love the story of the story. Or the story behind the story, pick your preposition. It does seem to me to be a kind of animal impulse almost, a mammalian curiosity. For a reader to wonder about the autobiography in a fiction may be completely unavoidable and in fact may speak to the success of a particular narrative, though it may also speak to its failure.

  Lorrie Moore

  Animal, Curiosity, Stories

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• I am a total sucker for an actor's autobiography/biography. I have probably read most of them.

  Kate Fleetwood

  Actors, Biographies, Sucker

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• Memory is the crux of our humanity. Without memory we have no identities. That is really why I am committing an autobiography.

  Erica Jong

  Memories, Humanity, Identity

  Erica Jong (2006). “Fear of Fifty”, p.52, Penguin

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• The surroundings householders crave are glorified autobiographies.

  T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings

  Home, Surroundings, Crave

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• Authors can write stories without people assuming that they are autobiographies, but songwriters and poets are often considered to be the characters in their works. I like Michelangelo's vision, 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

  Criss Jami

  Character, Angel, Writing

  Criss Jami (2011). “Salomé: In Every Inch in Every Mile”, p.158, Criss Jami

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