The Book, Cat, & Cat Book Lovers Almanac

of historical trivia regarding books, cats, and other animals. Actually this blog has evolved so that it is described better as a blog about cats in history and culture. And we take as a theme the advice of Aldous Huxley: If you want to be a writer, get some cats. Don't forget to see the archived articles linked at the bottom of the page.

September 25, 2013

September 25, 1897

William Faulkner (September 25, 1897 to July 6, 1962) won the Nobel prize, in 1949, the year after Intruder in the Dust was published. This book includes the text:

“What sets a man writhing sleepless in bed at night is not having injured his fellow so much as having been wrong; the mere injury he can efface by destroying the victim and the witness but the mistake is his and that is one of his cats which he always prefers to choke to death with butter.”

I am not sure that first quote makes much sense, but, this one, from a different source, (Paris Review, Spring, 1956) does:

“If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies”

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