James Purdy/biography

Famous quotes containing the words james, purdy and/or biography:

    “The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.”
    —Philip Guedalla (1889–1944)

    “Someone hangs in the sky
    over there from a piece of rope,
    hammering and fitting God’s belly-scratcher,
    working his way up along the spire
    until there’s nothing left to nail on—”
    —Alfred Wellington Purdy (b. 1919)

    “In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)