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Biography Quotes

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Biography Quotes

“Sometimes we must do for others what God puts on our hearts to do . . . But things don't always work out the way we expect or hope they will. We can't always be assured that the person we're trying to help will accept our love and help. And we can never expect them to appreciate what we try to do for them. We just have to do our best and leave the rest to God.”

Christian LivingBiographyHomeless PeopleChristian MinistryInner City MinistryUrban Ministry
Book:Johnny Cornflakes: A Story about Loving the Unloved
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“To my deep regret, Patrick was directly related to this, as he became “patient zero” in the Maria Butina case working for the FBI against me. However, when Patrick figured out what was happening behind the scenes and how both he and I were simply being used in Barack Obama’s political games, he went public and told the truth about his role in this case, and the dirty games of the American deep state.”

MemoirAmerican PoliticsBiographyTrue Accounts
Book:Danger Close: Domestic Extremist #1 Comes Clean
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“Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer; life, the same authorities have decided, has nothing whatever to do with sitting still in a chair and thinking. Thought and life are as the poles asunder. Therefore — since sitting in a chair and thinking is precisely what Orlando is doing now — there is nothing for it but to recite the calendar, tell one’s beads, blow one’s nose, stir the fire, look out of the window, until she has done… Surely, since she is a woman, and a beautiful woman, and a woman in the prime of life, she will soon give over this pretence of writing and thinking and begin at least to think of a gamekeeper (and as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking). And then she will write him a little note (and as long as she writes little notes nobody objects to a woman writing either) and make an assignation for Sunday dusk… She was kind to dogs, faithful to friends, generosity itself to a dozen starving poets, had a passion for poetry. But love — as the male novelists define it — and who, after all, speak with greater authority? — has nothing whatever to do with kindness, fidelity, generosity, or poetry. Love is slipping off one’s petticoat and — But we all know what love is… If then, the subject of one’s biography will neither love nor kill, but will only think and imagine, we may conclude that he or she is no better than a corpse and so leave her.”

WritingSexismBiographyIntellectualismDH Lawrence
Book:Orlando
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“Growing up in Fitzgerald, I lived in an intense microcosm, where your neighbor knows what you're going to do even before you do, where you can recognize a family gene pool by the lift of an eyebrow, or the length of a neck, or a way of walking. What is said, what is left to the imagination, what is denied, withheld, exaggerated-all these secretive, inverted things informed my childhood. Writing the stories that I found in the box, I remember being particularly fascinated by secrets kept in order to protect someone from who you are. That protection, sharpest knife in the drawer, I absorbed as naturally as a southern accent. At that time, I was curious to hold up to the light glimpses of the family that I had so efficiently fled. We were remote-back behind nowhere-when I was growing up, but even so, enormous social change was about to crumble foundations. Who were we, way far South? "We're south of everywhere," my mother used to lament.”

SouthBiographyGeorgiaSouthernersFrances Mayes
Book:Under Magnolia: A Southern Memoir
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“I wish you believe, not for myprofit, but for yours. I daily pray the true God give you light, that you may believe. Whether you will ever believe in tis world I do not know, but when you die I know you will believe what I now say. You will then appear before God you now deny. - Adorinam Judson to his Burman teacher.”

GodMissionaryBiographyBaptistAdorinam Judson
Book:To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson
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“Choosing to continue feeling disappointment about lost joys keeps us from experiencing new ones. We just need to stay afloat during the hard times so that we are ready when good times come again. This is one of the chief lessons we have learned from life on a boat, though not the first...”

InspirationalParentingMemoirSailingFamily RelationshipsBiographySea StoriesAdventure Travel
Book:Leaving the Safe Harbor: The Risks and Rewards of Raising a Family on a Boat
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“My senior year flew by and before I knew it, I was graduating from high school. I was never really fired up about going to the Naval Academy, but that’s easy to say after bombing out on the math part of the entrance exam. Little did I know that eventually, I would become part of the Naval Academy’s “Blue & Gold Program!” In time I would become a Math Teacher and a part of the Naval Academy’s “Blue & Gold Program!” Never mind, I did make it into Maine Maritime Academy at Castine, Maine. My interest in the sea was always merchant ships like the blue ribbon ocean liners and the sea itself. I was never really interested in fighting wars, or in warships for that matter. Perhaps it was that I had lost so many of my family to war that I hated the thought of people killing each other for what they considered a righteous cause. In spite of these feelings, I wound up with over forty years of military service. I knew that I was on the right track and at last my parents were proud of me. I was about to graduate with good grades and was following in the footsteps of “those that go down to the sea in ships.”

BiographyCaptain Hank BrackerSea StoriesUsna
Author:Captain Hank, Seawater One
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“Driving home, I thought of Janice, wondering why I wasn’t upset or hurt by (William) Styron’s wine-soaked moves. Did I give his flirtations a pass because of the alcohol? Was it because he was a famous and a highly praised writer whom I'd wanted to meet? Or did I need to protect him since he was somebody, and I was nobody? I only knew that I didn’t feel abused, like I knew Janice had been…. Styron was famous. But so was Coach, at least in Soso.”

FallComing Of AgeSurrealBiographyRiseIlluminateGlass CeilingConversationalKaren HintonMoral Failures
Book:Penis Politics: A Memoir of Women, Men and Power
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“Philosophically, I am a logical empiricist and materialist, and I am a veteran of over 400 radio and TV interviews and debates. I am a Christ-myth advocate and am pursuing research into how Christianity could have begun without a historical Jesus of Nazareth. I am married with one daughter and three grandchildren.”

ChildrenMarriageAtheismResearchInterviewsMaterialismVeteranGrandchildrenBiographyNaturalismPersonalEmpiricismDebatesHistorical JesusHistoricity Of JesusChrist MythHistoricityMaterialistEmpiricist
Author:Frank R. Zindler
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“That serves to illustrate there is this element of faith and this element of power. When you have people praying for you and you're praying yourself, coupled with the power of fasting, which makes you more humble and more teachable, you can learn things, even if it is given to you by revelation. ~~Russell M. Nelson: Father, Surgeon, Apostle by Spencer Condie”

InspirationalProphetInventorBiographySurgeonApostleHeart Lung MachineOpen Heart Surgery
Author:Spencer Condie
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“عند الأماركة ـ تتكوّن هوية الأمريكي الحقيقي من ذاته، وليس بالاندماج مع الآخرين، تماماً مثل قطرة الماء، هويتها أن تسمى وتبقى قطرة ماء فقط، أما حين تندمج في المحيط فقد فقدت كل هويتها وكل استقلالها.”

InspirationalWisdomHumorMotivationalLiteratureTravelBiographyAmericansPoltics
Book:مع الأماركة
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“يتلطّف الأماركة كثيراً -على الأقل المتعلمين منهم- في الحديث للوهلة الأولى إلى الآخرين في الأماكن العامة. يغلّف هذا اللطف التبسّط في الحديث ومشاركة التجارب الشخصية وأحياناً جوانب غير مهمّة من حياتهم. حين يكون كل هذا من المقابلة الأولى فإن العربي يشعر بالحميمية ويظن بأن من يحدّثه قد أصبح صديقاً مخلصاً له، ثم يصيبه الإحباط حين يمر به في اليوم التالي على الرصيف المقابل ثم لا يُحييه! النصيحة هنا لمن لا يعرف الأماركة أنه في الغالب قد رآك، لكن دعه يمضي.. دعه يمر!”

InspirationalWisdomHumorMotivationalLiteratureTravelBiographyAmericansPoltics
Book:مع الأماركة
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“Every time i see a butterfly, it reminds me of how precious life can truly be. To be able to turn from a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly and fly away so freely and gracefully wherever she may please, without no one in the world to tell her what to do. I wait for that special moment in time when I get to live freely, without no worries, pain or tears. I just want to be happy. I want the laughter in the air without all of the pain. One special day I’ll get to live my life just like that beautiful butterfly. I will no longer feel blue inside.”

InspirationalLife ChangingBiographyEmotional PainKidnapped
Book:Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed - A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings
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“Women have been using their ‘womanly wiles’ to influence male’s behavior for thousands of years. Why are they suddenly crying foul after they receive favor from those same men, some even decades before? They knew what they were doing from the start but had no problem accepting the benefits from those influential men. Why do women feel like they have the right to make outrageous claims of sexual harassment against men while destroying careers, businesses, and families with no repercussions?”

WomenBiographySpeaking OutMetoo MovementCry Foul
Author:Jane Whitaker
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“Imagine your worst day, multiply it by a hundred, and pray to your God that you never experience what some of the people in this war zone go through, everyday, without any hope of it getting better. Ever. Compared to these people, every day, no matter how bad, is the best day ever. I know nothing about pain, nothing about suffering and hopefully never will.”

LifeDreamsJourneyEventsTravelMemoirTrueBiographyLife Journey
Book:Living the Best Day Ever
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“Lastly, Spurgeon reminds us that piety and devotion to Christ are not preferable alternatives to controversy, but rather that they should - when circumstances demand it - lead to the latter. He was careful to maintain that order. The minister who makes controversy his starting point will soon have a blighted ministry and spirituality will wither away. But controversy which is entered into out of love for God and reverence for His Name, will wrap a man's spirit in peace and joy even when he is fighting in the thickest of battle. The piety which Spurgeon admired was not that of a cloistered pacifism but the spirit of men like William Tyndale and Samuel Rutherford who, while contending for Christ, could rise heavenwards, jeopardizing 'their lives unto the death in the high places of the field'. At the height of his controversies Spurgeon preached some of the most fragrant of all his sermons.”

ControversyBiographySpurgeon
Author:Iain H. Murray
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“My past (and sometimes my present) struggles offer plenty of feelings to mine for my songs. At the same time, I don't want to dwell in sadness or anxiety for the sake of my music. What I've come to accept is that great art doesn't come from wallowing in the negativity nor from attaining some mythical tranquility. The best art, for me anyway, arises from the PURSUIT of happiness. It's a difficult balance between the sadness and anger of my past and the struggle to live a happier life.”

InspirationalBiographyBrutally HonestPopular Monster
Book:I Can Explain
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“The air in Africa is more significant in the landscape than in Europe, it is filled with loomings and mirages, and is in a way the real stage of activities. In the heat of the midday the air oscillates and vibrates like the string of a violin, lifts up long layers of grass-land with thorn-trees and hills on it, and creates vast silvery expanses of water in the dry grass.”

ObservationAfricaBiographyMemoirsMiragesFine Writing
Author:Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)
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“After moving his family from Yakima to Paradise, California, in 1958, he enrolled at Chico State College. There, he began an apprenticeship under the soon-to-be-famous John Gardner, the first "real writer" he had ever met. "He offered me the key to his office," Carver recalled in his preface to Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist (1983). "I see that gift now as a turning point." In addition, Gardner gave his student "close, line-by-line criticism" and taught him a set of values that was "not negotiable." Among these values were convictions that Carver held until his death. Like Gardner, whose On Moral Fiction (1978) decried the "nihilism" of postmodern formalism, Carver maintained that great literature is life-connected, life-affirming, and life-changing. "In the best fiction," he wrote "the central character, the hero or heroine, is also the ‘moved’ character, the one to whom something happens in the story that makes a difference. Something happens that changes the way that character looks at himself and hence the world." Through the 1960s and 1970s he steered wide of the metafictional "funhouse" erected by Barth, Barthelme and Company, concentrating instead on what he called "those basics of old-fashioned storytelling: plot, character, and action." Like Gardner and Chekhov, Carver declared himself a humanist. "Art is not self-expression," he insisted, "it’s communication.”

WritingParadiseBiographyChekhovCarverRaymond CarverJohn GardnerChico State
Author:William L. Stull
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“Another new and groundbreaking story in FDR Unmasked is about his highly consequential friendship with Vincent Astor, the closest with any man in his adult life. To truly understand the “real” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the one behind his mask of deception, it is important to understand their almost brotherly relationship.”

LeaderHistoryDiseaseIllnessSecretsBiographyPresidentsUs PresidentsHistorical BiographyHeads Of States Biography
Book:FDR Unmasked: 73 Years of Medical Cover-ups That Rewrote History
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