James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabellwas an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 April 1879
CountryUnited States of America
Patriotism is the religion of hell.
For all men have but a little while to live and none knows his fate thereafter. So that a man possesses nothing certainly save a brief loan of his body: and yet the body of man is capable of much curious pleasure.
Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful happenings.
I do that which I do in every place. Here also, at the gateway of that garden into which time has not entered, I fight with time my ever-losing battle, because to do that diverts me.
What am I that I am called upon to have prejudices concerning the universe?
Man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams .
I am Manuel. I have lived in the loneliness which is common to all men, but the difference is that I have known it. Now it is necessary for me, as it is necessary for all men, to die in this same loneliness, and I know that there is no help for it.
In religious matters a traveller loses nothing by civility.
The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills — and as immortal.
Creeds matter very little... The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.
People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.
I am willing to taste any drink once.
Trapped dreams must die.
Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.