"He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace." -- John Mason Brown
John Mason Brown (3 July 1900 – 16 March 1969) was an American drama critic and author.
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, he graduated from Harvard College in 1923. He worked for the New York Evening Post from 1929 to 1941. He served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II, beginning in 1942. His book, To All Hands, documents his activities aboard the USS Ancon during Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.
Upon his return, his "Seeing Things" column appeared in The Saturday Review starting in 1944 until his death in New York City. In a 1948 radio broadcast, Brown attacked comic books as "the marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of the kids; and a threat to the future." (These charges were echoed during this period by other public figures like Sterling North, J. Edgar Hoover, and most notably Dr. Fredric Wertham, until Congressional hearings led to the mid-1950s self-censorship and rapid shrinkage of the comics industry.)
Brown resigned from the Pulitzer Prize drama jury in 1963 when the advisory board refused his recommendation of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
"A good conversationalist is not one who remembers what was said, but says what someone wants to remember.""America is a land where men govern, but women rule.""Charm is a glow within a woman that casts a most becoming light on others.""How prophetic L'Enfant was when he laid out Washington as a city that goes around in circles!""I am ready any time. Do not keep me waiting.""No one is worthy of a good home here or in heaven that is not willing to be in peril for a good cause.""So often we rob tomorrow's memories by today's economies.""Some television programs are so much chewing gum for the eyes.""The critic is a man who prefers the indolence of opinion to the trials of action.""The more one has seen of the good, the more one asks for the better.""The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose."