Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.
Source: Quoted in: James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 20 March 1776 (1791). Johnson was referring specifically to Goldsmith's Life of Parnell. He later reiterated and qualified this statement: They only
-- Samuel Johnson, (Sep 18 1709-1784), English lexicographer, critic; He was remembered for writing the first critique of Shakespeare, 1765 and Dictionary of the English Language, 1755.