Monday, February 8, 2016

Literary Barbs

Authors have a way with words; and sometimes they are outspoken about other authors or literature in general.

The British have long had a taste for bad books; but they like them well-written.
                    --Malcolm Bradbury

[On Henry James] One of the nicest old ladies I have ever met.
                    --William Faulkner

Most new books are forgotten within a year, especially by those who borrow them.
                    --Evan Esar

Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and frequently lies down to rest.
                     --Max Eastman

A good book tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad book tells the truth about its author.
                     --G. K. Chesterton              

[On Ben Jonson] Reading him is like wading through glue.
                     --Alfred Lord Tennyson

A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to repeating yourself.
                     -- Don Marquis

[On Norman Mailer] He is now what he wanted to be: the patron saint of bad journalism.
                     -- Gore Vidal

[On Charlotte Bronte] I wish her characters would talk less like the heroes and heroines of police reports.
                      -- George Eliot

[Joseph] Conrad spent the whole day finding the mot juste, then killed it.
                      -- Ford Madox Ford

A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
                     -- Mark Twain

[On P. G. Wodehouse] English literature's performing flea.
                     -- Sean O'Casey

The big advantage of a book is that it's easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.
                     -- Jerry Steinfeld

[Evelyn] Waugh is an antique in search of a period, a snob in search of a class.
                     -- Malcolm Muggeridge

A literary movement consists of five or six people who live in the same town and hate each other cordially.
                     -- George Moore

To cay that Agatha [Christie]'s characters are like cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard.
                     -- Ruth Rendell

I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.'
                     -- Richard Brautigan

My  father [Kingsley] always had doubts about the Booker Prize although they evaporated on the announcement that he had won it.
                     -- Martin Amis

[On E. M. Forster] He is limp and damp and mild as the breath of a cow.
                     -- Virginia Woolf.

[On Aldous Huxley] The stupid person's idea of a clever person.
                     -- Elizabeth Bowen



7 comments:

Dixie@dcrelief said...

Good thing I'm into Asian movies lately!

Linda Kay said...

Yikes! Blistering commentary!

TexWisGirl said...

youch!

Cloudia said...

oh thank you Angel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

allenwoodhaven said...

Good picks. There are so many barbs to choose from!

Mike said...

I probably have read zero classics.

John A Hill said...

Sometimes the pen is the sword!
Happy Mardi Gras, Angel!