“Biographies are best when written chronologically. Boring people don't make for good biographies.”

“Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.”

“A good novel is the biography of an imaginary person--and when the biography is completed, the person is no longer imaginary; he is as real as his creator”

“There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people if he's any good.”

“But a lot of times, people die how they live. And so last words tell me a lot about who people were, and why they became the sort of people biographies get written about.”

“It seems to me that someone must surely take the hint and write the life of Miss McGeeney, the woman who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of Boswell.”