Biographies Quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.

— Iris Origo

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a…

— Nell Freudenberger

Not all popular novelists are good, but all good novelists are, sooner or later, popular.

— Dean Koontz

There are a few writers whose lives and personalities are so large, so fascinating, that there's no such thing as a boring biography of…

— Robert Gottlieb

What's not realized about good novelists is that they're as competitive as good athletes. They study each other - where the other person is…

— Norman Mailer

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

I believe that people should write biographies only about people they love, or understand, or both. Novels, on the other hand, are often better…

— Penelope Fitzgerald

There are so many good authors; there's no shortage of them.

— Jeanne Calment

Any good biography has to got to lead you to the work. Many biographers have started out in love with their subjects and ended…

— D. T. Max

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.

— Russell Lynes

Novelists are perhaps the last people in the world to be entrusted with opinions. The nature of a novel is that it has no…

— Anthony Burgess

Philip Roth is a fabulous writer, but he pretty much stays within his own life. He's so good - I mean, practically anything I've…

— Tom Wolfe