Famous Quotes - Tags - Autobiography

  • ... all fiction may be autobiography, but all autobiography is of course fiction. More
  • ... any fiction ... is bound to be transposed autobiography. More
  • A man’s memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present... More
  • A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has... More
  • A whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. More
  • All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies. More
  • All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you... More
  • An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing. More
  • Anyone who attempts to relate his life loses himself in the immediate. One can only speak of... More
  • Autobiographies are ... only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you... More
  • Autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter Two. More
  • Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form. More
  • Autobiography is now as common as adultery and hardly less reprehensible. More
  • Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good... More
  • Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one... More
  • Biography, too, is liable to the same objection; it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the... More
  • Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the... More
  • Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and,... More
  • Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza,... More
  • Gratefully accepting the proffered honor, [to inscribe a new legal work to him] I give the leave,... More
  • Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts--the book of their deeds, the book... More
  • Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that... More
  • Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I... More
  • I ... ran for Legislature [in 1832] ... and was beaten—the only time I have been beaten by the... More
  • I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850. More
  • I am not a very sentimental man; and the best sentiment I can think of is, that if you collect... More
  • I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost... More
  • I don’t think anybody should write his autobiography until after he’s dead. More
  • I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those... More
  • I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer... More
  • I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend me. More
  • I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set... More
  • I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects. More
  • I may be no better, but at least I am different. More
  • I only see clearly what I remember. More
  • I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. More
  • I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child. More
  • I was born and have ever remaind [sic] in the most humble walks of life. More
  • I was elected a Captain of Volunteers—a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had... More
  • I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.... More
  • I was raised to farm work. More
  • I write fiction and I’m told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s... More
  • I write mainly for the kindly race of women. I am their sister, and in no way exempt from their... More
  • If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I... More
  • In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect... More
  • It is a most curious experience for a man of seventy-two to be confronted with the greenhorn... More
  • It is futile to ask women not to go into business, as futile almost as to insist that water shall... More
  • It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have... More
  • It is too late—the world is too dark for any thought ahead. Others are writing my biography,... More
  • It isn’t that you subordinate your ideas to the force of the facts in autobiography but that... More
  • It would astonish if not amuse, the older citizens of your County who twelve years ago knew me a... More
  • Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name. More
  • Members rise from CMG (known sometimes in Whitehall as “Call Me God”) to KCMG (”Kindly Call... More
  • My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to... More
  • My Turn is the distilled bathwater of Mrs. Reagan’s life. It is for the most part sweetish,... More
  • My wife, who does not like journalizing, said it was leaving myself embowelled to posterity—a... More
  • No man could bring himself to reveal his true character, and, above all, his true limitations as... More
  • Once there was a man who had lost his way in the high mountain passes of Switzerland. It was cold... More
  • One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes... More
  • People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making... More
  • Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography.... For... More
  • Since [Rousseau’s] time, and largely thanks to him, the Ego has steadily tended to efface... More
  • Such reproductions may not interest the reader; but after all, this is my autobiography, not his;... More
  • That which resembles most living one’s life over again, seems to be to recall all the... More
  • The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love... More
  • The literature of women’s lives is a tradition of escapees, women who have lived to tell the tale. More
  • The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full... More
  • The theme of my autobiography could only be repetition. More
  • The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write... More
  • There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are... More
  • There were some schools, so called [in my youth]; but no qualification was ever required of a... More
  • They’re all the same—it’s always rags-to-riches or I-slept- with-so-and-so. Damned if I’m... More
  • Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it... More
  • Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole... More
  • Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were... More
  • We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or... More
  • We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. More
  • What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing... More
  • When I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the... More
  • When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find that fact and fancy look alike across the... More
  • When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did... More
  • When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the... More
  • When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about. More
  • Who does not see that I have taken a road along which I shall go, without stopping and without... More
  • You can put anything into words, except your own life. More
  • You may well ask how I expect to assert my privacy by resorting to the outrageous publicity of... More
  • [A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his... More
  • [The public has] the habit now of invalidating opinions emanating from me by reference to my age... More

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