[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him.
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 any attempt to present it as a unified, consistent whole, to enclose it within a rigid frame, inevitably tempts one to cheat or to falsify.
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 OrigoI do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.
Iris OrigoBehind each biography there should always be a rich treasury of unformulated knowledge, a tapestry that has not been unrolled.
Iris OrigoI believe, not theoretically, but from direct personal experience, that very few of the things that happen to us are purposeless or accidental (and this includes suffering and grief - even that of others), and that sometimes one catches a glimpse of the link between these happenings. I believe - even when I am myself blind and deaf, or even indifferent - in the existence of a mystery.
Iris Origo