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)
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
No one in the modern world controls the wealth or territory that Cleopatra did. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman. View quote
Stacy Schiff
And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history. View quote
Stacy Schiff
When a woman teams up with a snake a moral storm threatens somewhere. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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? View quote
Stacy Schiff
You have to scuba dive in the Alexandrian harbor if you want to see what remains of the lighthouse of Cleopatra's day, and the water in the Alexandrian harbor is not really something you want to come into contact with. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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 playing field of our own. Decorously or defiantly, we now approach what surely qualifies as the final frontier. (Stacy Schiff)
The biographer has two lives: The one she leads, and the one she ultimately understands. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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-preservation in disguise. And for millennia, this has made for a zero-sum game: A woman's intelligence was a man's deception. View quote
Stacy Schiff
I have three children, each of whom is having an idyllic childhood, probably because I have been at the office the entire time. View quote
Stacy Schiff
I don't think there is ever objective biography. Our vision of our subject is always shaped by who we are. So I do, of course, think the biographer's view is always something to keep in mind. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view. View quote
Stacy Schiff
I wouldn't dare to speculate as to Cleopatra's falling in love. Her relationships are too convenient for that. (Stacy Schiff)
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! View quote
Stacy Schiff
The interesting thing about Cleopatra is that she is such a shape-shifter. I mean through history we've all molded her to our times and our places. So there's room for a movie for her, but I don't think it will hew to the book. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff
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. View quote
Stacy Schiff