• Van Wyck Brooks died on 5/2/1963.

Portrait of Van Wyck Brooks, 1909

“If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?”

• May Sarton was born on 5/3/1912. “In a total work, the failures have their not unimportant place.”
• William Inge was born on 5/3/1913. He wrote several wildly popular plays that were successfully adapted for the screen: Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop. He won the Academy Award for writing the original screenplay for Splendor in the Grass.
• Jane Bowles died on 5/4/1973. “I am a writer and I want to write.”