Malcolm Cowley Quotes

The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.

Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.

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.

Put cotton in your ears and pebbles in your shoes. Pull on rubber gloves. Smear Vaseline over your glasses, and there you have it: instant old age.

It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child, while not being loved as a child is loved, but merely being kept alive against one's will.

Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.

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.

Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens

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.

Going back to Hemingway's work after several years is like going back to a brook where you had often fished and finding the woods as deep and cool as they used to be.

Age is not different from earlier life as long as you're sitting down

It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child while not being loved as a child is loved but merely being kept alive against one's will.

...but you drank your black coffee by choice, believeng that Paris was sufficient alcohol.