Murray Ringold on ideology, in Philip Roth's I Married a Communist:

"...when you decide to contribute your personal problem to an ideology's agenda, everything that is personal is squeezed out and discarded and all that remains is what is useful to the ideology."

George Orwell on autobiography:

"Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats."

Joseph Epstein on Speak, Memory.