"I have had the unfortunate experience of having someone write an unauthorised biography of me. Half of it is lies and the other half is badly written. My feeling is that if I'm going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first"
About this Quote
French turns the indignity of being "known" into a punchline with teeth. The first jab is structural: she doesn’t dispute the biography on lofty ethical grounds; she grades it. “Half of it is lies and the other half is badly written” is a comedian’s scalpel, collapsing two separate offenses - fabrication and incompetence - into one neat insult. It’s not just that the book is wrong. It’s that it’s artistically lazy, a second betrayal for someone whose public life is built on craft.
The deeper sting is the asymmetry of modern celebrity: other people get to narrate you in permanent ink while you’re still mid-sentence. “Unauthorised” carries the legal chill, but French plays it as a social absurdity: strangers feel entitled to stitch together a person from gossip, projection, and marketable trauma. Her complaint isn’t “I want privacy,” it’s “I want authorship.” Control over the story becomes control over the self.
The closer - “if I’m going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first” - is classic French misdirection: it sounds like a whimsical quip about aging, then lands as a critique of the biography-industrial complex. We demand a tidy arc (rise, fall, redemption) before the mess is finished. The line doubles as a defense mechanism: humor as boundary-setting, reclaiming power without pleading for it. She refuses to be embalmed while she’s still alive.
The deeper sting is the asymmetry of modern celebrity: other people get to narrate you in permanent ink while you’re still mid-sentence. “Unauthorised” carries the legal chill, but French plays it as a social absurdity: strangers feel entitled to stitch together a person from gossip, projection, and marketable trauma. Her complaint isn’t “I want privacy,” it’s “I want authorship.” Control over the story becomes control over the self.
The closer - “if I’m going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first” - is classic French misdirection: it sounds like a whimsical quip about aging, then lands as a critique of the biography-industrial complex. We demand a tidy arc (rise, fall, redemption) before the mess is finished. The line doubles as a defense mechanism: humor as boundary-setting, reclaiming power without pleading for it. She refuses to be embalmed while she’s still alive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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