100 Quotes About Biography

We all know that life is not always fair. Sometimes we get dealt a lousy hand and other times we get dealt a really good one. We all have our ups and downs and sometimes life throws us curves for which we’re not prepared. We often see ourselves as victims and believe that we can’t really control our lives Read more

But the truth is, we can. And we must if we want to live a happy and fulfilling life, no matter what happens. All too often we allow ourselves to be victimized by the events in our lives but there is a solution: just focus on your choices.

The words of wisdom below will help you take control of your life and enjoy every good moment that comes your way.

1
How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but–mainly–to ourselves. Julian Barnes
If you want it really, you get it ! !...
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If you want it really, you get it ! ! ! Ravinder Singh
3
I started studying law, but this I could stand just for one semester. I couldn't stand more. Then I studied languages and literature for two years. After two years I passed an examination with the result I have a teaching certificate for Latin and Hungarian for the lower classes of the gymnasium, for kids from 10 to 14. I never made use of this teaching certificate. And then I came to philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In fact, I came to mathematics indirectly. I was really more interested in physics and philosophy and thought about those. It is a little shortened but not quite wrong to say: I thought I am not good enough for physics and I am too good for philosophy. Mathematics is in between. . Unknown
4
All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Unknown
5
If the mystery can be reduced to one solution, it lies in a simple coincidence: Rimbaud's interest in his own work had survived the realization that the world would not be changed by verbal innovation. It did not survive the failure of all his adult relationships. He had always treated poems as a form of private communication. He gave his songs to chansonniers, his satires to satirists. Without a constant companion, he was writing in a void. Graham Robb
The awful part of the writing game is that you...
6
The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good. P.g. Wodehouse
7
Suppose someone tried to write your biography. What nonsense! How much would he know? Would he know what you thought when you looked in the subway slot-machine? How brutally you spoke when you were angry? How Nature rode you with a busy spur? How you fell on your knees late at night? Christopher Morley
But artists didn't need to achieve
8
But artists didn't need to achieve "firsts", and Hughes wanted to be an artist. Diane Wood Middlebrook
9
For when I trace back the years I have liv'd, gathering them up in my Memory, I see what a chequer'd Work Of Nature my life has been. If I were now to inscribe my own History with its unparalleled Sufferings and surprizing Adventures (as the Booksellers might indite it), I know that the great Part of the World would not believe the Passages there related, by reason of the Strangeness of them, but I cannot help their Unbelief; and if the Reader considers them to be but dark Conceits, then let him bethink himself that Humane life is quite out of the Light and that we are all Creatures of Darknesse. Peter Ackroyd
I don’t read biographies for moral instruction, or for a...
10
I don’t read biographies for moral instruction, or for a history lesson. I want to know what people are saying about me. Bauvard
11
You are aware that what they do, they do for the world, and the results are, of course, magnificent. But when you . read Douglas Adams. . you feel you are, perhaps, the only person in the world who really gets them. Just about everybody else admires them, of course, but no one really connects with them in the way you do . . It’s like falling in love. When an especially peachy Adams’ turn of phrase or epithet enters the eye and penetrates the brain, you want to tap the shoulder of the nearest stranger and share it. The stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they didn’t quite understand its force and quality the way you do, just as your friends, thank heavens, don’t also fall in love with the person you are going on and on about to them. Stephen Fry
12
A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness. Mother Teresa
13
Because I always feel like running Not away, because there is no such place Because if there was, I would have found it by now Because it's easier to run, Easier than staying and finding out you're the only one who didn't run Because running will be the way your life and mine will be described, As in "the long run" Or as in having "given someone a run for his money" Or as in "running out of time" Because running makes me look like everyone else, though I hope there will never be cause for that Because I will be running in the other direction, not running for cover Because if I knew where cover was, I would stay there and never have to run for it Not running for my life, because I have to be running for something of more value to be running and not in fear Because the thing I fear cannot be escaped, eluded, avoided, hidden from, protected from, gotten away from, Not without showing the fear as I see it now Because closer, clearer, no sir, nearer Because of you and because of that nice That you quietly, quickly be causing And because you're going to see me run soon and because you're going to know why I'm running then You'll know then Because I'm not going to tell you now . Gil ScottHeron
The paths carved by the divine carpenter into her palms...
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The paths carved by the divine carpenter into her palms are actually treasure maps showing the way to heaven. J.Y. Tacheva
People are complicated, ” she said. “Didn’t they teach you...
15
People are complicated, ” she said. “Didn’t they teach you that in biography school? Frederick Weisel
16
The war was all that mattered to Hitler. Yet, cocooned in the strange world of the Wolf's Lair, he was increasingly severed from its realities, both at the front and at home. Detachment ruled out all vestiges of humanity. Even towards those in his own entourage who had been with him for many years, there was nothing resembling real affection, let alone friendship; genuine fondness was reserved only for his young Alsatian. He had described the human being the previous autumn as no more than 'a ridiculous "cosmic bacterium" (eine lächerliche "Weltraumbakterie")'. Human life and suffering was, thus, of no consequence to him. He never visited a field-hospital, nor the homeless after bomb-raids. He saw no massacres, went near no concentration camp, viewed no compound of starving prisoners-of-war. His enemies were in his eyes like vermin to be stamped out. But his profound contempt for human existence extended to his own people. Decisions costing the lives of tens of thousands of his soldiers were made – perhaps it was only thus possible to make them – without consideration for any human plight. As he had told Guderian during the winter crisis, feelings of sympathy and pity for the suffering of his soldiers had to be shut out. For Hitler, the hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed were merely an abstraction, the suffering a necessary and justified sacrifice in the 'heroic struggle' for the survival of the people. . Ian Kershaw
17
What drove us crazy wasn't necessarily the sexual freedom his critic claimed he was unleashing, but freedom, period. Freedom to be yourself, to express yourself, to wear what you wanted to wear, to look the way you wanted to look, to have your own style, your own talk. Larry Geller
Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character,...
18
Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he’s shown his colors, run the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test. Nelson Mandela
19
I regret that I didn’t realize that actually they’ve got no power over you at school – it’s all just a trick to indoctrinate you into being a conditioned, tame, placid citizen. Rebel, children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory. Russell Brand
Don’t just make your life a documentary of compromised relationships...
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Don’t just make your life a documentary of compromised relationships rather live notorious, fearless and scandalous life to be part of others biographies. AnkitMishra
21
There were two worlds, two lives, for each person: this one--brief, narrow, finite; and the hereafter-- eternal, limitless, infinite. Fame, to mean anything, should go with one into the next world, where one could enjoy it perpetually. Courtney Anderson
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There's three different kinds of Christian, " said Cash. "There's preaching Christians, church-playing Christians, and then there's practicing Christian. I'm trying very hard to be a practicing Christian. Steve Turner
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You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture. You've got to become them."( Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History) David McCullough
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Read no history--nothing but biography, for that is life without theory. Benjamin Disraeli
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Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in this doctrine, she will begin to tell you, eagerly, the story of her life. Adam Gopnik
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Always do what you're afraid to do"- Robert F. Kennedy Evan Thomas
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No man is a caricature, no individual can alone bear responibilty for a nation's collapse. The disaster Zaire became, the dull acquiescence of its people, had its roots in a history of extraordinary outside interference, as basic in motivation as it was elevated in rhetoric. The momentum behind Zaire's free-fall was generated not by one man but thousands of compliant collaborators, at home and abroad. Michala Wrong
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I have got the Arctic lure and will certainly go North again. Louise Arner Boyd
29
I must say that the charm of the Arctic, its infinite diversity, its aloofness from the rest of the world, made it a field which gives its own reward. Only those who have seen the magnificent sunsets over the ice, who have…been buffeted by storms… can appreciate the spell which always draws us back there. Louise Arner Boyd
30
You can’t observe historical events; you can’t question historical actors; you can’t even know most of what has not been written about. What has been written about therefore takes on an importance that may be spurious. A few lines in a memoir, a snatch of recorded conversation, a letter fortuitously preserved, an event noted in a diary: all become luminous with significance–even though they are merely the bits that have floated to the surface. The historian clings to them, while, somewhere below, the huge submerged wreck of the past sinks silently out of sight. . Louis Menand
31
She replaced her wardrobe with marvels of the season bought from boutiques of the Palais-Royal and rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin. Outfits for a ball detailed in the fashion pages of the January 1839 edition of Paris Elegant describe dresses of pale pink crépe garnished with lace and velvet roses and accessorized with white gloves, silk stockings, and white cashmere or taffeta shawls. In the spring of that year, misty tulle bonnets came into fashion worn with capes of Alencon lace - “little masterpieces of lightness and freshness.“ Her bed was her stage, raised on a platform and curtained with sumptuous pink silk drapes. The adjoining cabinet de toilette was also a courtesan’s natural habitat, its dressing table a jumble of lace, bows, ribbons, embossed vases, crystal bottles of scents and lotions, brushes and combs of ivory and silver. She indulged her sweet tooth with cakes from Rollet the patissier, glaceed fruit from Boissier, and on one occasion sent for twelve biscuits, macaroons, and maraschino liqueur. Julie Kavanagh
32
We never knew Jim's surname but to us, as youngsters, he was "Jim Bool the Fool". It may not have been respectful but Jim Bool was the most outrageous liar you could ever meet. If it was test cricket time Jim would tell, in all seriousness, of how he played for Australia, of the centuries he had made and he wickets he had taken. In the football season he would describe the days when he had captained Melbourne. He had won King's Prizes for rifle shooting, the gun championship at Monte Carlo and when Melbourne Cup time came around we were treated to a vivid account of how he had won the Cup in his jockeying days. William Perry
33
Japan surprised almost everyone but Marty with their attack on Pearl Harbor, Karen Wardamasky Bobrow
35
Hitler initially served in the List Regiment engaged in a violent four-day battle near Ypres, in Belgian Flanders, with elite British professional soldiers of the initial elements of the British Expeditionary Force. Hitler thereby served as a combat infantryman in one of the most intense engagements of the opening phase of World War I. The List Regiment was temporarily destroyed as an offensive force by suffering such severe casualty rates (killed, wounded, missing, and captured) that it lost approximately 70 percent of its initial strength of around 3, 600 men. A bullet tore off Hitler’s right sleeve in the first day of combat, and in the “batch” of men with which he originally advanced, every one fell dead or wounded, leaving him to survive as if through a miracle. On November 9, 1914, about a week after the ending of the great battle, Hitler was reassigned as a dispatch runner to regimental headquarters. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class.On about November 14, 1914, the new regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Philipp Engelhardt, accompanied by Hitler and another dispatch runner, moved forward into terrain of uncertain ownership. Engelhardt hoped to see for himself the regiment’s tactical situation. When Engelhardt came under aimed enemy smallarms fire, Hitler and the unnamed comrade placed their bodies between their commander and the enemy fire, determined to keep him alive. The two enlisted men, who were veterans of the earlier great four-day battle around Ypres, were doubtlessly affected by the death of the regiment’s first commander in that fight and were dedicated to keeping his replacement alive. Engelhardt was suitably impressed and proposed Hitler for the Iron Cross Second Class, which he was awarded on December 2. Hitler’s performance was exemplary, and he began to fit into the world around him and establish the image of a combat soldier tough enough to demand the respect of anyone in right wing, Freikorps-style politics after th . Russel H.S. Stolfi
36
Pong had mutated into large stand-up Sega consoles by '82 and here was some extra revenue the guys were well up for. So the space on the left of the entrance was to be the games room. Until two weeks to opening." Where's the cloakroom?"" The what?"" The cloakroom, the fucking cloakroom."" What's your problem?"" We don't have a cloakroom. We have special polished South African granite bar tops that we haven't told Erasmus about 'cause he has a thing about apartheid, we have a balcony balustrade made of shaped QE-fucking-2 mahogany, but we seem to have built an entire club without a cloakroom."" Fuck." Hence you did not pass the games room but the cloakroom, the only cloakroom in the Manchester with forty-two power points. if you ever wanted to do a bit of ironing, these people were there for you. Tony Wilson
37
Honouring the youth of their town they provided a décor that a £20-a-Martini fleecing parlour could not have amortized. They had bought eighty low Alvar Aalto stools for the alcove and coctail bar seating. Also, twenty tall numbers in the same bent bleach wood classic style. Extremely expensive and brought in from Finland at equally great expense. And in the first twelve months, ninety percent had disappeared. Compared to the catastrophic damage done every other week to one of the toilets just off the main dance floor --the level of masonry demolition going deep into the floor implied the use of a full-sized pneumatic drill-- the loss of a bunch of stools was incidental. The fact that thirty-two then turned up in New Order's rehearsal room was therefore coincidental. If you couldn't join in the public in stealing from your own club, what was the point of opening it? . Tony Wilson
38
Rock It, Read It. Larry Acquaviva
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Find It, Live It, Love It. Larry Acquaviva
40
Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Unknown
41
If just one person has done it, it can be done. by V.L. Marshall Verity Louise Marshall
42
She said, 'No, you learned that you have power - power and determination. I love you and I am proud of you. With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere. Maya Angelou
43
Sometimes when a person is not being heard, it is appropriate to blame him or her. Perhaps he or she is speaking obscurely; perhaps he is claiming too much; perhaps she is speaking rather too personally. And one can, perhaps, charge Spielrein on all three counts. But, on balance, her inability to win recognition for her insight into repression was not her fault; it was Freud’s and Jung’s. Preoccupied with their own theories, and with each other, the two men simply did not pause even to take in the ideas of this junior colleague let alone to lend a helping hand in finding a more felicitous expression for her thought. More ominously still, both men privately justified their disregard by implicitly casting her once more into the role of patient, as though that role somehow precluded a person from having a voice or a vision of his or her own. It was and remains a damning comment on how psychoanalysis was evolving that so unfair a rhetorical maneuver, one so at odds with the essential genius of the new therapeutic method, came so easily to hand. In the great race between Freud and Jung to systematize psychoanalytic theory, to codify it once and for all, a simpler truth was lost sight of: Sometimes a person is not heard because she is not listened to. John Kerr
44
Speculation was now news. News had been confused with fact. Fact had been replaced by expert opinion. People had been replaced by their biographies. Ability had been replaced by disability. Thinking had been replaced by psychology. History had been reduced to story. And while the news media pumped out a new story every week on things that could kill you, Hollywood simultaneously created stories that showed that everything could be prevailed over. Meaning, he said, was so malleable that it could be turned inside out, and no one would know the difference–and it would–and, just like the universe that had expanded to its maximum size, everything that had ever been would happen in reverse and revert back to its original form until existence would disappear without leaving a trace of itself as the Big Bang backfired. John M. Keller
45
The Air Loom, for all its florid craziness, can be seen to have a function and a rationale: as a miraculous, if temporary, fix for a breaking mind, a coping strategy for a life that had become too brutally contradictory to sustain otherwise. Mike Jay
46
But, mad or sane, Matthews was a man of no ordinary persistence. He was not prepared to renounce the peace plan, any more than he would be prepared to renounce his madness a few years later. A month later he was back in France, this time for an extended stay. The optimistic dawn of his revolutionary adventures was coming to an end, and his dark night of the soul was about to begin. Mike Jay
47
Come the revolution, however, mesmerism was reconceived once more. From its beginnings many had seen it as an aristocratic fad: Mesmer (by this stage long gone to Germany and Switzerland) had made a fortune from the nobility, charged the huge fee of 100 livres for admission to his Society of Universal Harmony, and even been offered a pension for life by Marie-Antoinette. Mike Jay
48
We are now edging across the boundary - always a porous one - between self-justification and fantasy. Matthews' story is by no means a complete fantasy: we can recognise every event. But the frame of reference is somehow shrinking, and momentous world events being rewritten around the actions of a minor player. Mike Jay
49
Haslam leaves us in no doubt what we are supposed to make of Matthews' mental world: this is gibberish and nothing more. Mike Jay
50
The French revolution, he concluded, had not produced any new principles of truths, merely a mass of examples of how things could go wrong. Mike Jay
51
If history is written by the victors, conspiracy theory is typically written by the losers, and there were few greater losers in the revolution than the French church and especially the Jesuits. Mike Jay
52
James Tilly Matthews was not a prophet. He was a gifted, perhaps fragile individual who suffered intensely, and for little if any reward. Mike Jay
53
The French army had crowned a campaign of extraordinary successes by defeating the Austrians at Jemappes and pressing on to occupy a large swathe of Belgium and threaten Holland. For Britain, this changed everything: a French republic that spread across the North Sea coast meant the entire coastline facing Britain would be in Republican hands. Mike Jay
54
We think of 1789 as the date of the French Revolution, and the storming of the Bastille as its defining event. Yet as late as halfway through 1792, most of the familiar images of the revolution had yet to occur. Louis XVI was still king, and the Assembly was negotiating a new constitutional arrangement for the monarchy, not so different from Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mike Jay
55
It was Matthews, of course, for whom the verdict was the greatest disaster. Not only had he failed to escape from Bedlam, but the anomalies of the case made it highly unlikely that he would have the chance to appeal again. His family and friends had assembled an impeccable case, most of which had been ignored. Mike Jay
56
The Bedlam that greeted James Tilly Matthews, then, was not so much a baroque spectacle of depravity as an exhausted and run-down public institution, its building falling apart and its professional image tarnished. Mike Jay
57
Up to this point, it was rare for the mad to be distinguished from the poor, the homeless, the indigent, beggars, vagabonds, petty criminals and others who were unable to fit into society or take care of themselves. It was rare, too, that they were locked up. Mike Jay
58
To look back before 1800 is to enter another world, one where the number of institutions for the mad was a tiny fraction of today's and what we would now call mental disorders were often understood as religious ecstasies or diabolical possessions. Mike Jay
59
The Air Loom, if Matthews revealed its existence under questioning, would now be recognised immediately as a classic paranoid delusion. But in 1797 it was something that had never been encountered before, and would emerge as the baffling leitmotif of a case that was unprecedented in almost every imaginable way. Mike Jay
60
As a pauper, the obvious destination for James Tilly Matthews was the Bethlem Hospital, already long known in popular slang as Bedlam. The principal public asylum in London, it had accepted dangerous and insane paupers as 'objects of charity' for centuries, and was proud of the claim that it had never turned anyone away. Mike Jay
61
Matthews' shout of treason in the House was no random outburst of lunacy, but the last act in an astonishing adventure: one that might indeed have changed the history of Europe. But by this point there was no-one left to confirm the truth of the story. Most of the witnesses were dead, and those who were alive were not interested in talking. Mike Jay
62
At Bow Street Magistrates' Court the essential facts were established. The man's name was James Tilly Matthews. He was a pauper of the south London parish of Camberwell. He had a wife and a young family. He appeared to be of unsound mind. Mike Jay
63
The Air Loom had been constructed by the Jacobins in Paris around the time of their coup d'etat in 1793. Just as they had corrupted the ideals of the Enlightenment to their despotic ends, so had they corrupted Enlightenment science. The secret of its power was pneumatic chemistry, the science of the invisible elements known as 'airs' or 'gases, ' which had been developed by some of the great geniuses who had inspired the revolution. Mike Jay
64
Many had suspected that the political disasters of the past few years had a hidden cause. The bloodiness of the French mob rule was something unnatural, with a pitiless and inhuman progression that had never been seen before. Mike Jay
65
Jenny slowly awoke on the sacrificial altar to an Ethereal Light that flamed through the east wall, a radiant aura of love dispersing the frightful scene. A glow pulsating from Angeletta's body still burning in the fire pit slowly rose to join the Light. A Heavenly peace infused Jenny as she realized, "There's a man standing in the air straight above me! Judy Byington
66
Anyone who likes or hates Dana White should take a look at this. June White
67
Every Day is Canada Day for new Canadians Maureen Haddock
68
The point of school, after all, isn’t to do homework. The point of school is to learn. It was a mistake to assume that teachers–or anyone else, for that matter–automatically knew what was best for me. Rules are there to help us–to create a culture, to streamline productivity, and to promote success. But we’re not computers that need to be programmed. If you approach your bosses or colleagues with respect, and your goals are in alignment, there’s often room for a little customization and flexibility. And on the other side, those in positions of power shouldn’t force people to adhere to a plan for the sake of protocol. The solution, always, is to listen carefully–to your own needs and to those of the people around you. Biz Stone
69
A friend is someone who can brighten your day with a simple smile, when others try to do it with a thousand words. Beth Nimmo
70
I looked around at the rooms that I did not see as rooms but more as a landscape for my emotions, a biography of memory. Anne Spollen
71
What right does my present have to speak of my past? Has my present some advantage over my past? What "grace" might have enlightened me? except that of passing time, or of a good cause, encountered on my way? Roland Barthes
72
Living in China has made me appreciate my own country, with its tiny, ethnically diverse population of unassuming donut-eaters. Jan Wong
73
[As a very young man, I thought] of Europe as a place that could not exist except in the imagination, in glorious dreams, and through the careful lies of the silver screen. Roman Payne
74
If you're alive, kick into drive. Chase whimsies. See if you can turn dreams into a way to make a living, if not an entire way of life. Kevin Smith
75
I am Orafoura, but you can call me Jarod Kintz. I’m fairly proud to proclaim that Dora J. Arod has me on her short list of “World’s worst writers.” The list couldn’t get any shorter, because I’m the only name on it. I should tell her to stop calling it a list, and change the title to “World’s worst writer.” If you’re wondering why I rate all my work one star, it’s because the rating system doesn’t have a zero star option, or better yet, go into negative numbers. . Orafoura
76
Reading wasn't an attempt to educate myself. It was my chief escape from a world that, although gorgeous in landscape and rich with mountain culture, didn't provide what I needed–the promise of adventure, a life beyond the perimeter of hills. I often fantasized that I'd been adopted and had mysterious powers such as flying or teleportation. Books offered the promise of a world in which misfits like me could flourish. Within the pages of a novel, I was unafraid: of my father, of dogs, snakes, and the bully across the creek; of older boys who drove hot rods close enough to make me jump in the ditch; of armed men parked near the bootlegger. Chris Offutt
77
A bookshelf is a biography written by others. Kat Lehmann
78
Every old man that dies is a library that burns. Unknown
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Now he knew that any memories he might cherish during the last years of his life would be only fictions from a biography he'd never lived. Unknown
80
It should be some kind of goal to be absolutely clear about your past experiences and have let them all go and accepted them in full. Auliq Ice
81
In a nutshell, I am not unaware of my failings. Neither am I a stranger to irony. Mordecai Richler
82
But the truth is, nothing delights me more than a biography of one of the truly great that proves he or she was an absolute shit. Mordecai Richler
83
The abscess is a distant memory. The pain is gone. This dinner with her hosts and her health-care team, this week of seeing another country and another culture, this time of being in demand, this moment is reality. I am a lucky girl, (Judy) thinks. Shireen Jeejeebhoy
84
A popular Harvard business professor urged his students to read the obituaries in the New York Times before they read anything else, in order to learn from the lives of great men. Georges F. Doriot
85
I was born with my eyes turned inward. David Joseph Cribbin
86
I've seen so much and lived it all.  I  wanted  to  bite   the  earth  and  taste  it.  It  is  both  bitter  and  sweet,  and   if  I  had  my  time  to  live  over  again,  I  wouldn’t  change a  damn  thing –  Reg  Spiers Unknown
87
This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography. Sarah Hall
88
The world can accommodate your situation, as it accommodates all situations. And your body will keep explaining to you how it all works, this original experiment, this lifelong gift. Your body will keep describing how, for the first time being at least, there is no escape from this particular vessel. These are your atoms. This is your consciousness. These are your experiences--your successes and mistakes. This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography. This is the existential container, the bowl of your life's soup, wherein something can be made sense of, wherein there is a cure, wherein you are. Sarah Hall
89
Christine did not live, or love, as most people do. She lived boundlessly, as generous as she could be cruel, prepared to give her life at any moment for a worthy cause, but rarely sparing a thought for the many casualties that fell in her wake. Clare Mulley
90
Who makes things up? Who tells the real story? We all turn our lives into stories. It is a defining characteristic of our species. We retell our experiences. We quickly learn what parts are interesting to our listeners and what parts lag, and we shape our narratives accordingly. It doesn't mean we aren't telling the truth; we've simply learned which parts to leave out. Every time we tell the story again, we don't go back to the original event and start from scratch, we go back to the last time we told the story. It's the story we shape and improve on, we don't change what happened. This is also a way we have of protecting ourselves. It would be too painful to relive a childhood illness or the death of your best friend every time you had to speak of it. By telling the story from the story, instead of from the actual events, we are able to distance ourselves from our suffering. It also gives us the chance to make the story something people can hear. Ann Patchett
91
There is no history of anything happening until it does. And then there is. Ronda Rousey
92
Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains. Jeffrey Rasley
93
So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs. Elbert Hubbard
94
Just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean that you should! Bill Collins
95
Just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean that you sh Bill Collins
96
The clown was an evil one. They’re either good or bad, and this one was definitely the latter. Chris Thrall
97
I want to sling a stone, a small rock into a pool, see it ripple. I want to shake a tree, create a small storm.. Suzy Davies
98
The landscape is bathed in the honeyed light of morning. Sometimes the memory of winter comes again. And my days are colored reveries of you, my nights sensuous Suzy Davies
99
His lone withdrawing figure blended anonymously with the darkness, Dr Raven's quick, light steps becoming gradually distant, drowned out by the clicking staccato rush of trains, the steady drip of rainwater, and the clock of a nearby church as it heralded the hour Suzy Davies
100
Writing is...creating tattoos which are invisible, under your skin Suzy Davies