Biographies Quote by Peter Ackroyd

Whereas fiction is a continual discovery of what one wants to say, what one feels, what one means, and is, in that sense, a…

— Edmund White

Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas…

— Claire Tomalin

Biographies never feel as real as the best fiction. There is such a discontinuity between the narrative and the material it comes from, which…

— Janet Malcolm

I think a biography is only as interesting as the lives and times it illuminates.

— A. Scott Berg

Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.

— Orson Scott Card

“In many ways. . .the completeness of biography, the achievement of its professionalization, is an ironic fiction, since no life can ever be known…

— Ira Bruce Nadel

I believe that all fiction is personal and all writing is at some level personal.

— Kwame Dawes

I think I do more fiction than autobiography.

— Martine Syms

All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.

— Anonymous

Nonfiction is more personal for me. It's more personal in that it's more direct, and actually it's always been more direct, even when I…

— Joan Didion

Of all forms of fiction, autobiography is the most gratuitous.

— Tom Stoppard

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