What is success? It is a toy balloon among children armed with pins.
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) American journalist, author, and dramatist. [b. Eugene Devlan]
(Attributed)
This is attributed in multiple sources to Fowler's Skyline: A Reporter's Reminiscence of the 1920s (1961), but searches of two copies do not find this text.
In her biography The Whole Truth and Nothing But (1963), Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper wrote:One of the men I loved most above all others was Gene Fowler. He once wrote me a letter from London. “What is success?" he asked. “I shall tell you out of the wisdom of my years. It is a toy balloon among children armed with sharp pins."
The line is also shows up in Art Cohn, The Nine Lives of Michael Todd, ch. 19 "I Love You" (1958).
Quotations by:
Fowler, Gene
I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it, I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) American journalist, author, and dramatist. [b. Eugene Devlan]
Skyline: A Reporter’s Reminiscence of the ’20s, ch. 8 (1961)
(Source)
Fowler used this exact phrase in his autobiographical book, published posthumously, and I can find no other published reference to the phrase prior to 1960 (a review of the upcoming book).
The phrase is also attributed in many places to the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), but with no citation and no searchable use of the phrase during her lifetime.
Men are not against you, they are merely for themselves.
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) American journalist, author, and dramatist. [b. Eugene Devlan]
Skyline: A Reporter’s Reminiscence of the 1920s, ch. 8 (1961)
(Source)
A book is never finished, it is abandoned.
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) American journalist, author, and dramatist. [b. Eugene Devlan]
Quoted in H. Allen Smith, The Life and Legend of Gene Fowler, ch. 27 (1977)
(Source)