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Stacy Schiff Quotes

I checked to see if there’d been a really good book published in the last few decades. Then I started with what Cleopatra would have read, asking myself, ‘What can we know about her education?’ It turns out to be a very great deal, and bizarrely, no one had written about that before Picture Quote #1

By the time Florence Nightingale got her neurotic hands on Cleopatra, she had been mangled beyond recognition by both history and literature Picture Quote #1

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 effect. You subsist on the tactical omissions, the hollow words, the oddly unconnected dots Picture Quote #1

Cleopatra had one great advantage. She lived at a time when female sovereigns were not anomalies. And when women enjoyed rights they would not again enjoy for another 2,000 years. You could call them early feminists, if I may use a dirty word Picture Quote #1

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: ‘There’s no further new material; there are only new questions.’ Picture Quote #1

The desk thing is a problem for me. The ideal one would be vast and perfectly clear. Yet the bane of the biographical existence is paper; if you’re ‘an artist under oath’ you’re writing from a mountain of documentation Picture Quote #1

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I have three children, each of whom is having an idyllic childhood, probably because I have been at the office the entire time Picture Quote #1

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 pencil and a yellow legal pad. There’s good reason for this primitive behavior: I am a crackerjack typist. My hand moves far more quickly than my brain Picture Quote #1

When finally I mustered the courage to tell a novelist friend that I was talking to editors about a biography, her reply was, ‘Oh, that’s okay. That’s not a real book.’ Picture Quote #1

Of course, women have long exercised influence behind the scenes. A few thousand years ago this drove Aristotle to distraction: ‘What difference does it make whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.’ Picture Quote #1

It has always been preferable to attribute a woman’s success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life Picture Quote #1

Certainly, I am writing as a 21st-century woman, so I am much more inclined to view her as a three-dimensional woman. I think we keep coming up with this stubborn problem of a woman being judged by her appearance rather than her accomplishments. We are much more inclined to ask: was Cleopatra beautiful? Picture Quote #1

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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 Picture Quote #1

From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra’s irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect Picture Quote #1

Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented Picture Quote #1

We don’t know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been a great amount of scholarship in the last 30 years about education in the Hellenistic world and women in the Hellenistic world. We now know how an upper-class woman was educated in her day Picture Quote #1

Cleopatra stood at one of the most dangerous intersections in history; that of women and power. Clever women, Euripides had warned hundreds of years earlier, were dangerous Picture Quote #1

The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero’s life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts Picture Quote #1

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Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently Picture Quote #1

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! Picture Quote #1

I’m a sucker for lost worlds. I was nostalgic even as a child. I was happiest in my hometown library in Adams, Mass., where nothing seemed to change Picture Quote #1

Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater Picture Quote #1

Motherhood is always an act of courage Picture Quote #1

Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens Picture Quote #1

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And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history Picture Quote #1

When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere Picture Quote #1

As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman Picture Quote #1

An interesting thing about book groups, it seems to me, is that there is no correlation between a brilliant book and a brilliant discussion. The first seems sometimes even to undermine the second Picture Quote #1

It has always been preferable to attribute a woman’s success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life Picture Quote #1

Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket Picture Quote #1

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Text Quotes

I checked to see if there’d been a really good book published in the last few decades. Then I started with what Cleopatra would have read, asking myself, ‘What can we know about her education?’ It turns out to be a very great deal, and bizarrely, no one had written about that before (Stacy Schiff Quotes) By the time Florence Nightingale got her neurotic hands on Cleopatra, she had been mangled beyond recognition by both history and literature. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) 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 effect. You subsist on the tactical omissions, the hollow words, the oddly unconnected dots. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Cleopatra had one great advantage. She lived at a time when female sovereigns were not anomalies. And when women enjoyed rights they would not again enjoy for another 2,000 years. You could call them early feminists, if I may use a dirty word. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: ‘There’s no further new material; there are only new questions.’ (Stacy Schiff Quotes) The desk thing is a problem for me. The ideal one would be vast and perfectly clear. Yet the bane of the biographical existence is paper; if you’re ‘an artist under oath’ you’re writing from a mountain of documentation. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) I have three children, each of whom is having an idyllic childhood, probably because I have been at the office the entire time. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) 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 pencil and a yellow legal pad. There’s good reason for this primitive behavior: I am a crackerjack typist. My hand moves far more quickly than my brain. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) When finally I mustered the courage to tell a novelist friend that I was talking to editors about a biography, her reply was, ‘Oh, that’s okay. That’s not a real book.’ (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Of course, women have long exercised influence behind the scenes. A few thousand years ago this drove Aristotle to distraction: ‘What difference does it make whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.’ (Stacy Schiff Quotes) It has always been preferable to attribute a woman’s success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Certainly, I am writing as a 21st-century woman, so I am much more inclined to view her as a three-dimensional woman. I think we keep coming up with this stubborn problem of a woman being judged by her appearance rather than her accomplishments. We are much more inclined to ask: was Cleopatra beautiful? (Stacy Schiff Quotes) 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. (Stacy Schiff Quotes) From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra’s irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented (Stacy Schiff Quotes) We don’t know how Cleopatra spent her days, but we do know how other Hellenistic monarchs spent their days. There has been a great amount of scholarship in the last 30 years about education in the Hellenistic world and women in the Hellenistic world. We now know how an upper-class woman was educated in her day (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Cleopatra stood at one of the most dangerous intersections in history; that of women and power. Clever women, Euripides had warned hundreds of years earlier, were dangerous (Stacy Schiff Quotes) The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero’s life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently (Stacy Schiff Quotes) 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! (Stacy Schiff Quotes) I’m a sucker for lost worlds. I was nostalgic even as a child. I was happiest in my hometown library in Adams, Mass., where nothing seemed to change (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Here you have an incredibly ambitious, accomplished woman who comes up against some of the same problems that women in power come up against today. Cleopatra plays an oddly pivotal role in world history as well; in her lifetime, Alexandria is the center of the universe, Rome is still a backwater (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Motherhood is always an act of courage (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Ancient history is oddly short on incorrect omens (Stacy Schiff Quotes) And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history (Stacy Schiff Quotes) When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere (Stacy Schiff Quotes) As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman (Stacy Schiff Quotes) An interesting thing about book groups, it seems to me, is that there is no correlation between a brilliant book and a brilliant discussion. The first seems sometimes even to undermine the second (Stacy Schiff Quotes) It has always been preferable to attribute a woman’s success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life (Stacy Schiff Quotes) Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket (Stacy Schiff Quotes)

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