biography

is a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

Biography is: a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

is capable of being the most middle-class of all forms, the judgment of little people avenging themselves on the great.

Biography can be the most middle-class of all forms, the judgment of little people avenging themselves on the great. Edmund White

is complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many as a thousand.

A biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many as a thousand.

is necessarily about the artist's pettiness because it is in their work (rather than their lives separated from their work) that they have put the best of themselves.

To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves. Simone Weil

is possible, you have shapeless happenings and gossip.

possible. Without discovering that, you have shapeless happenings and gossip.

is rarely good. A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

is usually written by the one Judas among the many of a great man's disciples.

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography. Oscar Wilde

biography, n.Definitions

biography