Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.-Gene Fowler

Today Tammy and I are discovering who was born on our birthday (March 8) and learning a little about them.

I found a really cool guy (OK, an American journalist and biographer, 1890-1960)named Gene Fowler. I instantly fell in love with him when I read these quotes:

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

Sometimes I think my writing sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.

Perhaps no mightier conflict of mind occurs ever again in a lifetime than that first decision to unseat one's own tooth.

Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.

It is easier to believe than to doubt.

I will be brief. Not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the world's shortest speech. He said I will be so brief I have already finished, and he sat down.

He has a profound respect for old age. Especially when it's bottled.

For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men lived and worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.

Here's a blurb about him from Wikipedia:

Gene Fowler (born Eugene Devlan) (March 8, 1890 – July 2, 1960) was an American journalist, author and dramatist.

He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat. After a year at the University of Colorado, he took a job with The Denver Post. His assignments included an interview with frontiersman and Wild West Show promoter Buffalo Bill Cody. He established his trademark impertinence by questioning Cody about his many love affairs.

Subsequently, Fowler worked for the New York Daily Mirror, and then became newspaper syndication manager for King Features. His later work included over a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the 1930s, and a number of books including biographies and memoirs.

During his years in Hollywood, Fowler became close to such celebrities as John Barrymore and W.C. Fields. Fields, whose animus toward children is legendary, claimed that Gene Fowler's sons were the only children he could stand.

In 1916, Fowler married Agnes Hubbard who bore three children, the eldest of whom was Gene Fowler Jr. (1917-1998), a prominent Hollywood film editor (whose work included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Hang 'Em High) and a sometime director (1959's I Was a Teenage Werewolf as well as numerous television programs).

Gene Fowler died in Los Angeles, California.



To read more of his very worthwhile (and funny!) quotes, click here.