“The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between d...” — George Steiner Quote

“The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.”

“Books are in no hurry. An act of creation is in no hurry; it reads us, it privileges us infinitely. The notion that it is the occasion for our cleverness fills me with baffled bitterness and anger.”

“I find so much writing colourless, small in its means, unwilling to take stylistic risks. Often it goes wrong; I am not the one to judge. Sometimes, I hope, it goes right.”

“My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug 'Vanity Fair.' You feel smarter, somehow, for reading it.”

“My parents did give me a lot of books - biographies of Marie Curie - and I did read them, because I was interested.”

“Some of those drawn into the holy war had been secular nationalists only a few years before. If one looks at the biographies of these people, remarkable continuities are revealed.”