#biography

In many ways. . .the completeness of biography, the achievement of its professionalization, is an ironic fiction, since no life can ever be known completely, nor would we want to know every fact about an individual. Similarly, no life is ever lived according to aesthetic proportions. The "plot" of a biography is superficially based on the birth, life and death of the subject; "character," in the vision of the author. Both are as much creations of the biographer, as they are of a novelist. We content ourselves with "authorized fictions. ↗

— Ira Bruce Nadel

#biography #death

When they made love Geryon liked to touch in slow succession each of the bones of Herakles' back as it arched away from him into who knows what dark dream of its own, running both hands all the way down from the base of the neck to the end of the spine which he can cause to shiver like a root in the rain. ↗

— Anne Carson

#autobiography-of-red #carson #dreams

[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

#dreams #europe #lies #movies #roman-payne

But artists didn't need to achieve "firsts", and Hughes wanted to be an artist. ↗

— Diane Wood Middlebrook

#education #hughes #education

I don't need no Smith and Wesson, man, I got Merriam and Webster. ↗

— Avi Steinberg

#reading #librarians

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve. ↗

— Sissy Spacek

#family

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

#elvis-presley #freedom #if-i-can-dream #dreams

This book would not have been made without the tireless mentoring and rare friendship of Christian Bok, Steven Collis and Nicole Markotic. ↗

— Jordan Scott

#fable #foible #mirror-stage #oughtobiography #stutterance

Do you consider yourself a blessing or just another person? ↗

— Jonathan Anthony Burkett

#blessings #books #encouragement #inspirational #life

I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured. ↗

— President James A. Garfield - courtesy of Millard's "Destiny of the Republic"

#inspirational #speeches #inspirational