But everybody goes

English novelist Thomas Hardy was born on this day in 1840. In his novel Jude the Obscure, as his hero lay dying alone, Hardy wrote:

"Nobody came, because nobody does."

Pick your poison

French novelist Louise-Ferdinand Celine was born on this day in 1894. In Journey to the End of the Night, he wrote:

"For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow men in peace time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out."

He's too modest -- Answered Prayers was #1

American author William Golding (Lord of the Flies)was born on this day in 1911.

"Lord of the Flies was one of the great rip-offs of our time." -- Truman Capote.

And tomorrow is another day in cynicism

Margaret Mitchell's novel, Gone With the Wind, was published on this day in 1936. It became a movie in 1939.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." -- Rhett Butler.

Read, and then dead

English novelist Daphne du Maurier was born on this day in 1907. She wrote the novel Rebecca. She also wrote:

"Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard."

He doesn't have to write any more g.d. stupid useless books

Birthday of author J. D.. Salinger, born in 1935. This is from The Catcher in the Rye.

"What I'd do, I figured, I'd go out west where it was very pretty and sunny and where nobody knew me and I'd get a job...I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddamn stupid useless conversations with anybody."

Writing has its heights and depths

English novelist Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights ) died on this day in 1848.

A contemporary of hers, Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), said this about their vocation:

"Writing is the most ignoble of professions."

To read about Emily Bronte's last words, visit Farewells

He said Vidal had a funny first name

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author of The Gulag Archipelago, among other books, was born on this day in 1918. He wrote:

"Freedom! To spit in the eye and in the soul of the passerby and the passenger with advertising!"

Fellow novelist Gore Vidal said of Solzhenisyn: "He is a bad novelist and a fool. The combination usually makes for great popularity in the U. S."

Her stories weren't corny, though

American novelist Willa Cather was born on this day in 1873, in Virginia.

When she was 10 years old, she moved to Nebraska, where she grew up and which she later made the setting of her most famous novels, O Pioneers! and My Antonia.

H. L. Mencken said of her and her books:

"I don't care how well she writes; I don't give a damn what people in Nebraska do."

The Devil didn't make me do it

Novelist Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim) was born on this day in 1857.

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary," he wrote. "Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."

He himself was the one exception

Theodore Dreiser, the American novelist who wrote "An American Tragedy," had his first novel, "Sister Carrie," published on this day in 1900. He made $68.40 in royalties. Dreiser once wrote: "Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards."

Fellow novelist Sherwood Anderson wrote about Dreiser: "Something grey and bleak and hurtful, that has been in the world perhaps forever, is personified in him."

(Also read about Dreiser at Last Words -- click this entry's title.)