William E. Wallace Quotes

In retrospect one's life is subject to invention and distortion. Documentation is often scanty, and what survives rarely predicts a famous life. Indeed, fame begins with the mundane: a messy birth, a crying baby, health and sickness, parents, family, schooling. Later, we consciously and unconsciously edit our lives: saving some papers, throwing much away; telling and retelling certain stories and suppressing much more. By the time a biographer relates a life, much of it has faded into well-tailored memory, an open arena for creative retelling or outright invention.