Literary Birthday – 24 August – Malcolm Cowley

Malcolm Cowley was born 24 August 1898 and died 27 March 1989.

Seven Malcolm Cowley Quotes

1. They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it very much.
2. The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.
3. Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you
4. Be kind and considerate with your criticism… It’s just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.
5. In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do – if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn’t feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living.
6. Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens.
7. Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn’t a story.

Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.

Source for image: This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division
under the digital ID van.5a51863.   Photographed by en:Carl Van Vechten, en:March 26, en:1963

by Amanda Patterson

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