• Nathaniel Hawthorne died on 5/18/1864. “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true.” (The Scarlet Letter; The House of the Seven Gables; The Blithedale Romance; Twice-Told Tales)
• George Meredith died on 5/18/1909. “There is nothing the body suffers the soul may not profit by.” (The Adventures of Harry Richmond; Diana of the Crossways; Modern Love)
• William Saroyan died on 5/18/1981. “No enemy is so annoying as one who was a friend, or still is a friend, and there are many more of these than one would expect.” (The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze; The Human Comedy; The Time of Your Life)
• James Boswell died on 5/19/1795. “I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.” (The Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides; Life of Samuel Johnson)
• Lorraine Hansberry was born on 5/19/1930. “There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” (A Raisin in the Sun; The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window)
• T.E. Lawrence died on 5/19/1935. “There could be no honor in sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat.” (Seven Pillars of Wisdom; The Mint)
• Booth Tarkington died on 5/19/1946. “So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.” (Monsieur Beaucaire; Penrod; Penrod and Sam; Seventeen; The Magnificent Ambersons; Alice Adams; Presenting Lily Mars)
• Ogden Nash died on 5/19/1971. “People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.” (Candy is Dandy; I’m a Stranger Here Myself; Private Dining Room; Everyone But Thee and Me)
• Sir John Betjeman died on 5/19/1984. “I don’t think I am any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn’t be.” (Mount Zion; Continual Dew; High and Low)
• Honore de Balzac was born on 5/20/1799. “The more one judges, the less one loves.” (Cromwell; Les Chouans; Sarrasine; La Cousine Bette)
• John Clare died on 5/20/1864. “The best way to avoid a bad action is by doing a good one, for there is no difficulty in the world like that of trying to do nothing.” (The Rural Muse; Sonnet; The Firetail)
• Adela Rogers St. Johns was born on 5/20/1894. “Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky.” (A Free Soul; The Honeycomb; screenplays; newspaper articles)
• Sir Max Beerbohm died on 5/20/1956. “All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.” (The Happy Hypocrite; Zuleika Dobson; A Peep into the Past)

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