Stacy Schiff

“He had never been a believer in systems—his was an overweening faith that life lay in the contradictions, not in the formulae,…

— Stacy Schiff

“Like any oppressed people, they defined themselves by what offended them, which”

— Stacy Schiff

Life-writing calls for any number of dubious gifts: A touch of O.C.D., a lack of imagination, a large desk, neutrality of Swiss…

— Stacy Schiff

“Evsei Slonim would have seen himself as a member of the intelligentsia, a classless class whose features Nabokov described as""the spirit of…

— Stacy Schiff

I can't write a line without music - it provides just the right amount of distraction to keep me focused. Clearly, I…

— Stacy Schiff

“Her palace shimered with onyx, garnet, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue.”

— Stacy Schiff

You ever try to leave New York? I did once. I lasted about a year.

— Stacy Schiff

Cleopatra was on a political mission to save her country and her power, but what we remember about her are these two…

— Stacy Schiff

“Confronted afterward, she claimed no knowledge of that bedroom tryst; she did not intend to be held responsible for men's dreams.”

— Stacy Schiff

We don't know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been…

— Stacy Schiff

The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything…

— Stacy Schiff