# Quote — Mary Antin, The Promised Land

> A proper autobiography is a death-bed confession. A true man finds so much work to do that he has no time to contemplate his yesterdays; for to-day and to-morrow are here, with their impatient tasks. The world is so busy, too, that it cannot afford to study any man's unfinished work; for the end may prove it a failure, and the world needs masterpieces.

- Author: [Mary Antin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin.md)
- Book: [The Promised Land](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin/the-promised-land.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mary_Antin#The_Promised_Land_(1912)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin/the-promised-land/a-proper-autobiography

## More from this book

> A little instruction in the elements of chartography—a little practice in the use of the compass and the spirit level, a topographical map of the town common, an excursion with a road map—would have given me a fat round earth in place of my paper ghost.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin/the-promised-land/a-little-instruction.md)

> Outside America I should hardly be believed if I told how simply, in my experience, Dover Street merged into the Back Bay.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin/the-promised-land/outside-america-i-should.md)

> It is painful to be consciously of two worlds. The Wandering Jew in me seeks forgetfulness. I am not afraid to live on and on, if only I do not have to remember too much. A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/mary-antin/the-promised-land/it-is-painful.md)