"[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him."

--

Source : Iris Origo (1984). “A Need to Testify”, p.37, Helen Marx Books

Iris Origo

#Writing Quotes #Wish Quotes #Biographies Quotes

“I think it's important to get your surroundings as well as yourself into a positive state - meaning surround yourself with positive people, not the kind who are negative and jealous of everything you do.”
“This earth that we live on is full of stories in the same way that, for a fish, the ocean is full of ocean. Some people say when we are born we're born into stories. I say we're also born from stories.”
“I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got [there]. But you saw further and clearer than I, and you opened the seas before my ship, whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which you were even then preparing to be my rescue and my shelter and my home.”
“The pack is very important for a dog. Once you give him the right pack and the right energy, you look at him.”
“What makes our poetry so contemptible nowadays is its paucity of ideas. If you want to be read, invent. Who the Devil wouldn't like to read something new?”
“We have a centrist nationalist group of people in this country, lots of them, and we have a socialist group of people in this country, lots of them. And that's not, to me, the American idea.”
“The role model approach to social change is no substitute for challenging unjust employment practices, educational policies and housing.”
“I believe people run marathons every day of their lives in one way or another, and we need to remember to give ourselves the finishers' medals we deserve.”

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