Alive Quote by Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Biographers, by their very nature, want to know everything about everybody, dead or alive.”

Catherine Drinker Bowen

About This Quote

Source Book: The Biography of a Biographer, 1965

Biographers are driven to uncover all details about any person.

In simple terms: Biographers seek total knowledge.

Key Takeaway

Embrace thorough research.

Themes

curiosity history writing

Mood

reflective inquisitive

Type

literary analytical

When to use this quote

documentary filmmaking
family histories
academic research
genealogy

Key Concepts

biography ethics privacy

Questions to Reflect On

Is total knowledge always ethical?
How to balance truth and privacy?

A Different Perspective

Privacy concerns can limit access to information.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.9 out of 5 (7 ratings)

Alive Biographers Biographers Nature Dead alive Dead Or Alive Know Everybody Knows Nature Want Want Know

More by Catherine Drinker Bowen

Writing is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

A woman's biography - with about eight famous historical exceptions - so often turns out to be the story of a man and the…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

What the writer needs is an empty day ahead.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

“Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences every thing twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

Will the reader turn the page?

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

People who carry a musical soul about them are, I think, more receptive than others. They smile more readily. One feels in them a…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

Many a man who has known himself at ten forgets himself utterly between ten and thirty.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

All the others arts are lonely. We paint alone--my picture, my interpretation of the sky. My poem, my novel. But in music--ensemble music, not…

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

Chamber music - a conversation between friends.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

History is, in its essence, exciting; to present it as dull is, to my mind, stark and unforgivable misrepresentation.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Image

Explore all 27 Catherine Drinker Bowen quotes

More Alive quotes

I understand that it's the music that keeps me alive... That's my lifeblood. And to give that up for, like, the TV, the cars,…

Bruce Springsteen

Image

I feel very grateful to be alive and well enough to make music.

Adam Ant

Image

I don't crave applause. I'm not one of those guys who comes alive on stage. I'm much more alive at home, I think.

David Bowie

Image

We must master our egoism, and through this mastery, step outside ourselves and educate ourselves in giving. Fasting requires that we rediscover all that…

Tariq Ramadan

Image

I can't say that there are 'things' that make me come alive. There are thoughts that make me come alive.

Marianne Williamson

Image

We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.

Orson Scott Card

Image

If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.

Bob Costas

Image

Peace is an ongoing process. It begins with the first step and it does not end. We, all of us alive today, are the…

David Krieger

Image

I think adoption becomes complicated whenever the biological parents are alive.

James Haven

Image

The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It is a perpetual wound.

Maureen Duffy

Image

I have tried to resign myself, and to console myself; and that, I hope, I may have done imperfectly; but what I cannot firmly…

Charles Dickens

Image

If Melanchthon were alive today, he might not weep because of controversies that surround the Lord's Supper, but he might well sorrow because of…

Erwin W. Lutzer

Image

Browse all 7,282 Alive quotes

Alive Quote by Catherine Drinker Bowen

About This Quote

Related quotes

More by Catherine Drinker Bowen

More Alive quotes