Autobiography
Quotes on Autobiography
Autobiography is now as common as adultery and hardly less reprehensible.
John Grigg (b. 1924) British author, journalist
Memoirs:- The backstairs of history.
George Meredith (1828-1909) English author
The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Anglo-Irish playwright, critic
A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.
Anatole France (1844-1924) French author
All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American humorous writer
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) American adviser on international affairs
Autobiography is an unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
Philip Guedalla (1889-1944) British author
When my journal appears, many statues must come down.
Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)
Autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter Two.
Ellery Sedgwick (1872-1960) American editor
English soldier, statesman I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish author
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents. were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it.
J. D. Salinger (b. 1919) American author opening words of Catcher in the Rye
