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Quote by Catherine Drinker Bowen

“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.”

Author

Catherine Drinker Bowen

Catherine Drinker Bowen, an American writer, was born on January 1, 1897, and passed away on November 1, 1973. She is renowned for her research and writing on American history, particularly focusing on the figures and events of the American Revolutionary War period. more

“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?”

Source: The Nature of the Artist: An Address Delivered at the Dedication Ceremonies for Lee Pattison Recital Hall, Wilbur Hall, Mary Kimberly Residence Hall

“Artists often think they are going to die before their time. They seem to possess a heightened sense of the passing of the hours.”

Thinking Seems Artist Dies Hours Passing Passings

Author:Catherine Drinker Bowen

“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.”

Men Stories Turns Women Careers Historical Eight Exception Biographies

Author:Catherine Drinker Bowen

“Biographers, by their very nature, want to know everything about everybody, dead or alive.”

Knows Want Alive Biographers

Author:Catherine Drinker Bowen

“History is, in its essence, exciting; to present it as dull is, to my mind, stark and unforgivable misrepresentation.”

Mind History Essence Exciting Dull Starks Unforgivable Misrepresentation

Author:Catherine Drinker Bowen