It is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Writing a good biography is compared to living a good life, suggesting both are equally difficult.
- In plain terms
- Writing a good life story is as hard as living one yourself.
- What can you take from it?
- Crafting a meaningful life story is as challenging as living one.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Is writing as hard as living?
- What makes a good life?
Another view
It equates two very different activities that may not compare directly.
More from Lytton Strachey
The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it. For ignorance is the first requisite of the historian - ignorance, which sim…
Permalink to quote #3 It is not [the biographer's] business to be complimentary; it is his business to lay bare the facts of the case, as he understands them...dispassionately, impa…
Permalink to quote #5 If this is dying, then I don't think much of it.
Permalink to quote #2
Related quotes
Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way round.
David LodgeDavid Lodge quote #1 O.K., I'm a rock critic. I also write and record music. I write poetry, fiction, straight journalism, unstraight journalism, beatnik drivel, mortifying love le…
Lester BangsLester Bangs quote #1 Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.
Christina RossettiChristina Rossetti quote #1