Literary Birthday – 15 August – Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber was born on 15 August 1885 and died on 16 April 1968.

Edna Ferber Quotes

1. Life can’t defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer’s lover until death.
2. Books should be cherished, like children, books are for the next generation, like children, like history.
3. There are two ways of doing battle against Disgrace. You may live it down; or you may run away from it and hide. The first method is heart-breaking, but sure. The second cannot be relied upon because of the uncomfortable way Disgrace has of turning up at your heels.
4. Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.
5. There is no denying the fact that writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.
6. Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping, or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the roar of an occasional ‘L’ train, and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description, and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily.
7. A closed mind is a dying mind.
8. Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill, and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!
9. Big doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren’t better than violets.
10. About mistakes it’s funny. You’ve got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs, they get mad.

Edna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. Her novels included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big, Show Boat, which was made into the 1927 musical, Cimarron,  which was made into the Academy Award-winning film, and Giant, which was also adapted for film. Her works featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination, ethnic or otherwise. Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.

Source for Image: Theatre Magazine Company; Nickolas Muray, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Common

by Amanda Patterson
Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: The Complete Author Birthday Calendar