The biographer's real business - if it is not too arrogant to say so - is simply this: to bring the dead to life.
Iris OrigoBehind each biography there should always be a rich treasury of unformulated knowledge, a tapestry that has not been unrolled.
Iris OrigoI 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 be - there is always at the back of one's mind an irrational hope that this next book will be different: it will be the rounded achievement, the complete fulfilment. It never has been: yet I am still writing.
Iris Origo[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him.
Iris Origowhile it is certainly the biographer's business to describe the foibles, passions and idiosyncrasies which make his subject a person, his work will be very meagre if these individual traits are not also seen as part of a universal drama - for each man's life is also the story of Everyman.
Iris Origo