Best 258 quotes in «autobiography quotes» category

The body never lies." Martha Graham

The corpses were hauled away on sledges or on carts, depending on the time of the year. Sometimes, for convenience, they used one box for six corpses, and if there were no boxes, then they tied the hands and legs with cords so they didn’t flop about. After this they piled them up like logs and covered them with bast matting. If there was an ammonal available, a special brigade of gravediggers would dynamite pits for them. Otherwise they had to dig the graves, always common graves, in the ground: either big ones for a large number or shallow ones for four at a time. (In the springtime, a stink used to waft into the camp from shallower graves, and they would then send last-leggers to deepen them). On the other hand, no one can accuse us of gas chambers.

The dominant myth of the day seemed to be that anybody could do anything, even go to the moon. You could do whatever you wanted -in the ads and in the articles, ignore your limitations, defy them. If you were an indecisive person, you could become a leader and wear lederhosen. If you were a housewife, you could become a glamour girl with rhinestone sunglasses. Are you slow witted? No worries -you can be an intellectual genius. If you're old, you can be young. Anything was possible. It was almost like a war against the self.

The features of character are carved out of adversity.

The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies - and our species deserves the credit. I am a devout atheist - nothing else makes any sense to me and I must admit to being bewildered by those, who in the face of what appears so obvious, still believe in a mystical creator. However I can see that the promise of infinite immortality is a more palatable proposition than the absolute certainty of finite mortality which those of us who are subject to free thought (as opposed to free will) have to look forward to and many may not have the strength of character to accept it. Thus I am a supporter of Amnesty International, a humanist and an atheist. I believe in a secular, democratic society in which women and men have total equality, and individuals can pursue their lives as they wish, free of constraints - religious or otherwise. I feel that the difficult ethical and social problems which invariably arise must be solved, as best they can, by discussion and am opposed to the crude simplistic application of dogmatic rules invented in past millennia and ascribed to a plethora of mystical creators - or the latest invention; a single creator masquerading under a plethora of pseudonyms. Organisations which seek political influence by co-ordinated effort disturb me and thus I believe religious and related pressure groups which operate in this way are acting antidemocratically and should play no part in politics. I also have problems with those who preach racist and related ideologies which seem almost indistinguishable from nationalism, patriotism and religious conviction.

The first half of my life was dedicated to corporate America. The second half is dedicated to me.

There is no way for even the most honest among us to look into memory's dreamy, evasive eyes and know she can be persuaded not to lie, not to betray.

The poet gives his whole life such a voluntarily steep incline that it is impossible for it to exist in the vertical line of biography where we expect to meet it. It is not to be found under his own name and must be sought under those of others, in the biographical columns of his followers. The more self-contained the individuality from which the life derives, the more collective, without any figurative speaking, is its story.

The memoirs of call girls are much in demand these days - a millennial craze.

The most useless questions an adult can ask a child- What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that's the end

There is never a destination, just the impulse to grow. My only policy through has been to keep an open mind and whatever I may do, to give it my all.

These then are some of my first memories. But of course as an account of my life they are misleading, because the things one does not remember are as important; perhaps they are more important.

The sea sounded like a thousand secrets, all whispered at the same time.

The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

The SS Deutschland was one of a group of four ships that included the SS Albert Ballin, on which my father had originally come to the United States. The other two were the SS Hamburg, and the SS New York. The Deutschland was launched during the Roaring Twenties on April 28, 1923, at the Blohm and Voss shipyard along the Elbe River in Hamburg. Nearly a year later after sea trials, she inaugurated her regular run to New York City. From the beginning, the ship was beset by problems, but was still considered the pride of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, a company with rich traditions that was founded in 1847. So, when the Deutschland left Hamburg for the first time on March 27, 1924, she moved slowly down the Elbe River past Blohm und Voss, the massive dockyard where she had been built. At the time of her maiden voyage, the entire city celebrated when the Deutschland headed down the Elbe River towards the North Sea. Other ships in the harbor fittingly saluted her by blowing their deep throaty whistles, as small craft such as tugboats and fireboats pumped frothy white streams of the brackish river water high into the air.

The stares were annoying, but I knew they didn’t mean any harm. So, every morning, smiling at them became part of my routine, too.

This is what the war has done to me. Now I want to destroy because of it. There is such hate and rage inside me now. The Angkar has taught me to hate so deeply that I now know I have the power to destroy and kill.

The World doesn't require me, but I require the World.

This is a rumour-filled society and if people want to sit around and talk about whom I've dated, then I'd say they have a lot of spare time and should consider other topics. Or masturbation. - Johnny Depp

Thos who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.

Those is seek to profit from the torment of others will eventually pay the piper

Those who tell their own story you know must be listened to with caution.

Thus it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.

Throughout my life people have constantly told me to 'be careful', to 'take care' and to 'mind how I go'. They may just be figures of speech, but they always seem such stupid things to say to someone. I feel like saying "Thanks for the timely reminder-I was just about to walk up the road naked and blindfolded into oncoming traffic

Today, happiness is dependent on not just what you have but also on how many people don't have it. The more you are able to show off your prosperity, the more content you are.

To me, that's the ultimate isolation - to be separated from my own mind.

We were scared. I guess when you're in your twenties, that's how it is. You've got an adult body, but you're trying to make it work with a kid's emotions. With Marilyn and me, it was worse. Our kid emotions didn't even work. We'd been treated too poorly.

Un Algérien vivant à Paris en 1962 était un être traqé. Tandis que les Algériens se battaient contre l'armée française dans leurs montagnes et ds les villes européanisées d'Alger et d'Oran, des groupes terroristes paramilitaires tombaient sans discrimination sur les hommes et les femmes dans la capitale colonialiste, pour la simple raison qu'ils étaient ou paraissaient être algériens. A Paris, des bombes explosaient dans les cafés fréquentés par les Nord-Africains, des corps ensanglantés étaient découverts dans les rues sombres et des graffiti anti-algériens défiguraient les murs des immeubles et des stations de métro. Un après-midi, je me rendis à une manifestation qui avait lieu sur la place de la Sorbonne en faveur du peuple algérien. Quand les flics la dispersèrent à coups de lances d'incendie à haute pression, ils se montrèrent aussi vicieux que les flicsau cou rouge de Birmimgham qui avaient reçu les Marcheurs de la Paix avec des chiens et des lances d'incendie." p.144

Too embarrassed even to try as long as everyone was looking at me, I made what was probably a fairly unique request. ‘Um, I’ll have a go. But I can’t do it if you’re all looking at me. Can I go inside the wardrobe and sing from there?’ The others looked at me strangely, possibly beginning to worry about the apparent absence of any stage personality in this girl they had just recruited, but to their credit they agreed, without killing themselves laughing, and so in I went. From inside my hidey-hole I sang David Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’. I emerged to a very positive response, the others all declaring that I sounded like Siouxsie Sioux – I was trying very hard to – and while I was quite pleased with myself, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to do it in front of an audience. We could hardly take the wardrobe around with us.

Until now, I constructed my existence carefully, tucking and folding every loose and disorderly bit of it, as if building some tight and airless piece of origami. I had labored over its creation. I was proud of how it looked. But it was delicate. If one corner came untucked I might discover that I was restless. If another popped loose, it might reveal I was uncertain about the professional path I’d so deliberately put myself on, about all the things I told myself I wanted.

Watching large mammals living their ordinary life in the jungle is extraordinary

We live in a world when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.

Where you stand on issues, how you live your life, and how much good you can do in the world are greater challenges than a lunar mission.

What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening - all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.

When I got off the train back home, I saw the WHITE and COLORED signs that had been there all along, as it it was the first time.

...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. ...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.

Why would any writer in her right mind ever consider making a movie instead? That's like going from being a monk or a nun to serving as a camp counselor for hundreds of problem children.

YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS, NOT ANYONE ELSE

Years ago, there were tribes that roamed the earth, and every tribe had a magic person. Well, now, as you know, all the tribes have dispersed, but every so often you meet a magic person, and every so often, you meet someone from your tribe.

You never know what’s lurking in the bloodstream, or skulking under the foreskin, or squatting in the liver, or flitting hither and thither from branch to branch in the bronchial forest.

You are not yourself in autobiography. It is never going to be you, it is only words on a page. Memories are unreliable, so adding the magic of imagination will make your story come alive.

All autobiography is fiction.

After my stroke I put down much of the luggage of my life. I didn't have to prove anything anymore - in business, in my personal life or whatever. And now, as I work on my autobiography, I enjoy looking back, seeing the connections, the causes and effects of my life.

All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.

All autobiography is self-indulgent.

American Splendor is just an ongoing journal. It's an ongoing autobiography. I started it when I was in my early 30s, and I just keep going.

Autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter Two.

An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

Anyone who attempts to relate his life loses himself in the immediate. One can only speak of another.

Anything that is not autobiography is plagiarism.