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

- Iris Origo

I do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.

- Iris Origo

[On writing biography:] ... every human life is at once so complex and so simple, so perplexing and so clear, so superficial and so profound, that an…

- Iris Origo

Behind each biography there should always be a rich treasury of unformulated knowledge, a tapestry that has not been unrolled.

- Iris Origo

I believe that every life , irrespective of its events and setting, holds something of unique value, which it should be possible to communicate, if …

- Iris Origo

while it is certainly the biographer's business to describe the foibles, passions and idiosyncrasies which make his subject a person, his work will b…

- Iris Origo

The biographer's real business - if it is not too arrogant to say so - is simply this: to bring the dead to life.

- Iris Origo

whereas in childhood ... it was the parents' judgement that mattered to the child, later on the situation becomes reversed: it is then that the opini…

- Iris Origo

I write because, exacting as it may be to do so, it is still more difficult to refrain, and because - however conscious of one's limitations one may …

- Iris Origo