Quotes About Biography

I felt that Stephen had become such a significant figure, a scientist of such international renown, that at some future date, someone would be sure to attempt an inaccurate, sensationalised biography, possibly including me, possibly writing me out of the script.

Biography is, simply, the orphan of academia.

About Sun Tzu himself this is all that Ssu-ma Ch`ien has to tell us in this chapter. But he proceeds to give a biography of his descendant, Sun Pin, born about a hundred years after his famous ancestor's death, and also the outstanding military genius of his time.

Biographical Notes II. Evil and Redemption III. The Question of Baptism IV. Faith and Philosophy V. The Church, Mystical and Social VI. Syncretism and Catholicity

Foreword I. Biographical Notes II. Evil and Redemption III. The Question of Baptism IV. Faith and Philosophy

MEMOIR The genre of an age that's lost all hope of a biographer.

The interesting thing about history sometimes. is that you know these people existed, and you knew what jobs they did, but you don't know much about them as people, so you actually have to make them up.

For the serious biographer, history and the life story of a real individual are inseparably intertwined. Get the facts wrong, or distort them, and the life story gets distorted: becomes fiction.

There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people if he's any good.

There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people, if he's any good.

his knack for catching human idiosyncrasies betrayed by pose, dress or movement. A biography allows us to travel with him through time and to gain some idea of how his many experiences stimulated and enriched his art.

Biography will never fail. Would that we were all equally secure of a higher matter, — our right of freedom of epistolary speech !

the biography of a childhood which necessarily is the biography of a place, a way of life gone forever out of the world.

'Off With Their Heads' by Frances Marion. I love a showbusiness autobiography - and this one resonates because it's written by one of the great Hollywood screenwriters.

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!

My life is very simple, it is not worth being written into a biography, for that 'masala' is required.

I was stunned to find out there had never been a serious, scholarly biography ever written on Rosa Parks.

I wrote a novel called 'Blonde,' which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth - that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture.

I wrote a great deal about the Civil Rights Movement when I was writing for 'The Nation' in the '60s, and also for Esquire magazine. Reading the biography of Coffin, it just reminded me that in those days, when you saw the term 'Christian,' it usually meant people for civil rights and for justice.

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.

I'm completely absorbed by Peter Guralnick's definitive, two-part biography of Elvis Presley: 'Last Train To Memphis' and 'Careless Love.' Meticulously researched, this is a compelling mix of history, myth-busting, and, of course, some timeless music.

I am an impatient, temperamental reader. Anything long-winded, high-flown or gushing irritates me, so does everything that is vague and indistinct, in fact anything that unnecessarily holds the reader up, whether in a novel, a biography or an intellectual argument.

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

When you read a biography remember that the truth is never fit for publication.