Biographies Quotes - Page 16

• All Philosophy is Biography

  Peter J. Carroll

  Philosophy

  Peter J Carroll (1992). “Liber Kaos”, p.96, Weiser Books

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• 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

  Men, Beaten, Written

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• Between history and the novel stands biography, their unwanted offspring, which has brought a great embarrassment to them both.

  Michael Holroyd

  Embarrassment, Novel, Offspring

  2002 Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography & Autobiography, 'The Case against Biography'.

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

  Michael Holroyd

  Thousand, Ten

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• Since the death of Nikola Tesla in 1943, his life has deserved a worthy biography. Bernard Carlson has delivered that in Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, which portrays Tesla as intensely human. . . . Anyone, whether simply an interested reader or a professional historian, engineer, or physicist, will finish Tesla with a deepened understanding of his world, character, and accomplishments.

  Robert Rosenberg

  Character, Accomplishment, Understanding

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• I read Michael Caine's biography. It was about him growing up

  Frank Lampard

  Growing Up, Growing

  "Quotes of the year - Part 1: The daftest quotes from players, managers and pundits" by Steve Anglesey, www.mirror.co.uk. December 27, 2008.

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• Kitty Kelley's method, already perfected in her unauthorised and unflattering biographies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, is to write bestsellers that take what she describes as an 'unblinking look' at their subjects - which might, of course, mean that her eyes are permanently open or permanently closed... the result is a work so bad that Britons cannot realise how fortunate they are in being unable to buy it. The great mistake with this book is not that it has been published in Britain, but that it has actually been published anywhere else.

  David Cannadine

  Mistake, Book, Mean

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• Biographies by preachers are of no value. If they admire a man they always make him a saint, while if they dislike one, they always make him a demon.

  George C. Lorimer

  Men, Atheism, Saint

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• 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

  Hate, Subjects, Biographers

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I never did write a biography, and I don't exactly know how to set about it; you see I have to be accurate and keep to the facts, a most difficult thing for a writer of fiction.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Writing, Fiction, Facts

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2009). “The Life of Charlotte Brontë”, p.10, OUP Oxford

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• [Judge and Jury] is outstanding. I have
  learned more about the history of
  baseball, true history, than from
  anything I have ever read or heard
  about. [It's] research and documentation
  clarifies so many of the personalities
  and events that took place before 'my
  time' in the game. Jacques Barzun's
  quote: 'Whoever would know the heart
  and mind of America had better learn
  baseball' should be supplanted by [this]
  biography of Landis.

  Ralph Kiner

  Baseball, Heart, Games

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• 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

  Together, Plot, Needs

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• Reading any collection of a man's quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won't go away hungry, but it's not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.

  Christopher Buckley

  Reading, Men, Giving

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• Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is helping to change the general picture of the past presented by historians.

  Claire Tomalin

  Past, Two, Use

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• I read more books for research purposes, whether its a fictionalized biography of Johannes Gutenberg or a stack of urban fantasies.

  Jim C. Hines

  Book, Gutenberg, Purpose

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• History is neither more nor less than biography on a large scale.

  Alphonse de Lamartine

  History, Scales, Large Scale

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• The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Mind, Kindred

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.382

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• There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Poetry, World

  Critical and Miscellaneous Essays "Sir Walter Scott" (1838)

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• I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer invariably finds it necessary to plaster the subject with praises, flattery and adulation and to invest him with all the Christian graces. If autobiography, the same plan is followed, but the writer apologizes for it.

  Carolyn Wells

  Christian, Grace, Apologizing

  Carolyn Wells (1937). “The Rest of My Life”

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• 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

  Book, Play, Long

  Margot Asquith (1933). “More Memories”

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• Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Lying, True Life, Events

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The works of Walter Savage Landor [ed. by J. Forster].”, p.243

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• biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.

  Erica Jong

  Art, Biographers, Collaborating

  Erica Jong (2013). “The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry Miller”, p.65, Open Road Media

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• Biographies of great, but especially of good men are most instructive and useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels,--teaching high living ,high thinking, and energetic action, for their own and, the world's good.

  Samuel Smiles

  Teaching, Men, Thinking

  Samuel Smiles (1866). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Charakter, Conduct and Perseverance”, p.6

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• The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.

  Samuel Smiles

  Inspiration, Men, Noble

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.269

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• There is no real escape from autobiography into biography. The self has to be faced, or we die.

  Fay Weldon

  Real, Self, Autobiography

  Fay Weldon (2014). “Fay Weldon Omnibus: Collected Works of Fay Weldon”, p.1365, Head of Zeus

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