Stacy Schiff

“Recently a study proved that working from a larger, less cluttered computer screen increases concentration. I could have told them that. And yes, I write first drafts with a mechanical penci...”

“No biographical subject is ever on hold with the orthodontist. If there's a dry spell, it's your job to curtail or eliminate it.”

“Life-writing calls for any number of dubious gifts: A touch of O.C.D., a lack of imagination, a large desk, neutrality of Swiss proportions, tactlessness, a high tolerance for archival dust....”

“I have three children, each of whom is having an idyllic childhood, probably because I have been at the office the entire time.”

“Have you ever been married? Had that thing of someone calling you by a name not your own? It's unsettling. It's like a fictitious person.”

“How does a woman in authority convey that authority? Is it possible for a woman to rule without sounding shrill? Is it possible for a woman to manage without manipulating? All of these thing...”

“In an ideal world, the perfect biographical subject would have been the star of his penmanship class at grade school - and would thereafter write an English that positively sings.”

“For a few thousand years, women had no history. Marriage was our calling, and meekness our virtue. Over the last century, in stuttering succession, we have gained a voice, a vote, a room, a...”

“For the several thousands of years before they became firefighters and physicians, women were sirens, enchantresses, snares. At times it seems as if female powerlessness is male self-preserv...”

“Insofar as there is an anxiety of influence for a biographer, it may be that each new book is undertaken in reaction to the previous book.”

“Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a reliable if not scenic route, we have delivered. Techniqu...”

“I can't write a line without music - it provides just the right amount of distraction to keep me focused. Clearly, I still miss the noisy roommates.”

“My next book is on the Salem witch trials. As a small-town Massachusetts girl, this makes me very happy. So does the reunion with documents!”

“No one sits on the stoop when she's a kid and thinks, 'I want to be a biographer when I grow up.'”

“Reality does not easily give up meaning; it's the biographer's job to clobber it into submission. You're meant not only to tame it but to extract substance, to identify cause and axiomatic e...”