A woman's biography - with about eight famous historical exceptions - so often turns out to be the story of a man and the woman who helped his career. Catherine Drinker Bowen More Quotes by Catherine Drinker Bowen More Quotes From Catherine Drinker Bowen For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. Catherine Drinker Bowen realization healing writing Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind. Catherine Drinker Bowen kindness writing life Writing is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. Catherine Drinker Bowen kind writing What the writer needs is an empty day ahead. Catherine Drinker Bowen empty needs Biographers, by their very nature, want to know everything about everybody, dead or alive. Catherine Drinker Bowen alive knows want History is, in its essence, exciting; to present it as dull is, to my mind, stark and unforgivable misrepresentation. Catherine Drinker Bowen essence mind history Chamber music - a conversation between friends. Catherine Drinker Bowen chamber-music conversation friendship Artists often think they are going to die before their time. They seem to possess a heightened sense of the passing of the hours. Catherine Drinker Bowen hours artist thinking I have noted that, barring accidents, artists whose powers wear best and last longest are those who have trained themselves to work under adversity. Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness. Catherine Drinker Bowen adversity treasure artist If art has a purpose, it is to interpret life, reproduce it in fresh visions. Catherine Drinker Bowen vision purpose art Many a man who has known himself at ten forgets himself utterly between ten and thirty. Catherine Drinker Bowen identity men knowledge In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink. Catherine Drinker Bowen ink black writing Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness. Catherine Drinker Bowen treasure time art What pioneer ever had chart and a lighthouse to steer by? Catherine Drinker Bowen lighthouse pioneers work your concert-goer, though he feed upon symphony as a lamb upon milk, is no true lover if he play no instrument. Your true lover does more than admire the muse; he sweats a little in her service. Catherine Drinker Bowen sweat music play One of the marks of true genius is a quality of abundance. A rich, rollicking abundance, enough to give indigestion to ordinary people. Great artists turn it out in rolls, in swatches. They cover whole ceilings with paintings, they chip out a mountainside in stone, they write not one novel but a shelf full. It follows that some of their work is better than other. As much as a third of it may be pretty bad. Shall we say this unevenness is the mark of their humanity - of their proud mortality as well as of their immortality? Catherine Drinker Bowen artist writing people People who carry a musical soul about them are, I think, more receptive than others. They smile more readily. One feels in them a pleasant propensity toward the lesser sins, a pleasing readiness also to admit the possibility that on occasion they may be in the wrong--they may be mistaken. Catherine Drinker Bowen soul people thinking There is a marvelous turn and trick to British arrogance; its apparent unconsciousness makes it twice as effectual. Catherine Drinker Bowen british arrogance workout Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them. Catherine Drinker Bowen women mistake friendship It is a great, a pleasant thing to have a friend with whom to walk, untroubled, through the woods, by the stream, saying nothing, at peace--the heart all clean and quiet and empty, ready for the spirit that may choose to be its guest. Catherine Drinker Bowen guests heart peace
