James Gould Cozzens

From Philosopedia

Cozzens, James Gould (1903—1978)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist for Guard of Honor (1948), Cozzens when asked by Warren Allen Smith about humanism responded:

I suspect you’ve confused me with Norman Cousins - something both Mr. Cousins and I are used to. I imagine he would be, but I am not at all interested in semantical studies.

Still, if it could be of some indirect use, I don’t mind commenting:

(1) Humanism, I’m afraid, connotes for me exactly the kind of vaporing exhibited in the examples of the reply you sent;

(2) Like Herr Mann, I trust I fall in none of the categories; but, in my case, for the more ignoble reason that I’m not a proud sympathizer with the secret of man but simply a writer;

(3) Many writers, not excluding several you name as having commented, strongly influenced me, by sounding like such asses when they neglect their business and shoot their faces off, against what I gather is humanism;

(4) When what a writer thinks cannot be told from his regular line of writing, or when he feels he has to supplement that with explanatory pronouncements, he’s probably unable to think at all; and I’m sure no present or future persons of judgment, whether literary historians or lay readers, will have the faintest interest he says he thinks he thinks.

{WAS, 19 April 1956}