The transgressive nature of biography is rarely acknowledged, but it is the only explanation for biography's status as a popular genre. — Janet Malcolm Copy Share Image
“Biographers rue the destruction or loss of letters; they might also curse the husband and wife who never leave each other’s side,… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share Image
The camera is simply not the supple and powerful instrument of description that the pen is. — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
“The writer ultimately tires of the subject's self-serving story, and substitutes a story of his own.” — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
Something seems to happen to people when they meet a journalist, and what happens is exactly the opposite of what one would expect. One… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
The ‘I’ character in journalism is almost pure invention. Unlike the ‘I’ of autobiography, who is meant to be seen as a representation of… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
“The subject of a piece of writing has not suffered the tension and anxiety endured by the subject of the "Eichmann experiment" (as it… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
This is what it is the business of the artist to do. Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
The journalist confines himself to the clean, gentlemanly work of exposing the griefs and shames of others. — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water of self-exposure, the journalist… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
“Something seems to happen to people when they meet a journalist, and what happens is exactly the opposite of what one would expect. One… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
You could say that any book that takes a position is not fair, unless you keep saying, 'On the one hand, on the other...'… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share
