Literary Birthday – 18 May – Patrick Dennis

Patrick Dennis was born on 18 May 1921 and died on 6 November 1976.

Patrick Dennis Quotes

1. I write in the first person, but it is all fictional. The public assumes that what seems fictional is fact; so the way for me to be inventive is to seem factual but be fictional.
2. I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.
3. …you know we writers must occasionally stretch a point to heighten the dramatic situation.
4. Writing isn’t hard – no harder than ditch digging.
5. Life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death!

Patrick Dennis, born Edward Everett Tanner III, was an American author whose novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade was one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century. Tanner wrote a sequel, titled Around the World with Auntie Mame, in 1958. He also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Virginia Rowans. All of Tanner’s novels employ to some degree the traditional comic devices of masks, subterfuge, and deception. One of the most eccentric, celebrated, and widely read authors of the 1950s and ’60s, Tanner wrote 16 novels in all, a majority of which were national bestsellers. Several of his works were adapted for other media.

Source for Image: Fair use to illustrate author, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patrick_Dennis_photo.jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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