Malcolm Cowley Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

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.

Malcolm Cowley
Authors are sometimes like tomcats: they distrust all the other toms, but they are kind to kittens.

Malcolm Cowley
Be kind and considerate with your criticism. … It's just as hard to write a bad book as a good book.

Malcolm Cowley
A man rising in the world is not concerned with history; he is too busy making it. But a citizen with a fixed place in the community wants to acquire a glorious past just as he acquires antique furniture. By that past he is reassured of his present importance; in it he finds strength to face the dangers that lie in front of him.

Malcolm Cowley
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.

Malcolm Cowley
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.

Malcolm Cowley
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
First New York was a sort of provincial capital, bigger and richer than Manchester or Marseilles, but not much different in its essential spirit. Then, after the war, it became one among half a dozen world cities. Today it has the appearance of standing alone, as the center of culture in the part of the world that still tries to be civilized.

Malcolm Cowley