Malcolm Cowley

“One of the dangers of being a scholar is that you develop a liking for boredom.”

“For the first time in history, the idols of the young are not military heroes or statesmen or rocking-chair philosophers, but other young men, and the most cynical of them.”

“The body is a vulnerable organism, and it has to be paid for.”

“The last act is always bloody, no matter how comically it began.”

“A writer's real work is the entire output of his life.”

“To be a writer is to be a conspirator.”

“They were an uprooted people, and the term 'generation' was both a boast and a complaint.”

“Writers are the custodians of memory, and that’s what this country needs.”

“No complete son-of-a-bitch ever wrote a good sentence.”

“Old age is not a disease, it is a defeat.”

“The function of the critic is to be a good reader—a reader who can assist other readers.”

“Old age is a series of losses.”

“Art is the triumph over chaos.”