While hunting one day with director Howard Hawks and William Faulkner, the acclaimed actor Clark Gable asked Faulkner to enumerate the five best authors of the day.

"Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos," Faulkner replied, "and myself." "Oh," Gable maliciously replied, "do you write for a living?" "Yes," Faulkner retorted, "and what do you do?"

[Faulkner's Nobel Prize was awarded a year late -- in 1950 -- because the committee couldn't make its selection in time. It was perhaps the most difficult decision in prize history; in addition to Faulkner, the initial list included Hemingway, Steinbeck, Pasternak, Sholokhov, Mauriac, Camus, Winston Churchill, and Par Lagerkvist.]