Quotes from Biographers

Posted by Dulcinea Norton-Smith Jun 25, 2008

Katharine Susan Anthony

“To the biographer all lives bar none are dramatic constructions. “

“The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history? “

Ruth Fulton Benedict

“No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking. “

Fawn M. Brodie

"Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity,

and my flesh begins crawling with suspense."

“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.”

Leon Edel

“The secret of biography resides in finding the link between talent and achievement. A biography seems irrelevant if it doesn’t discover the overlap between what the individual did and the life that made this possible. Without discovering that, you have shapeless happenings and gossip.”

Philip Guedalla

“Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium. “

“History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other. “

With thanks to World of Quotes