The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Literary Quotations
By Fred Metcalf
If you’re Wilde about Shaw but not Shaw about Wilde, this classic collection of humorous literary quotations is the book for you.
Within its pages you will find hundreds of hand-picked quotes in dozens of handy categories. All the big names are here, from Henry James to Clive James (no relation); from Waugh, Evelyn to War, Poets; from Dickens to Dictionaries and Twain to Twitter. Delve here and discover T. S. Eliot’s advice on becoming a great writer (it’s a bit anal). Find out what the critics said about Virginia Woolf and what Virginia Woolf said about the critics. And check out what it was about Jane Austen that got Mark Twain so hot under the choler!
When dirt is dished, fat is chewed, sides are split and chins are wagged, the result, dear reader, is this richly entertaining book.
“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
HENRY WARD BEECHER
“Biographers know nothing about the intimate sex lives of their own wives but think they know all about Stendhal’s or Faulkner’s.”
MILAN KUNDERA
“I hate writing. I love having written.”
DOROTHY PARKER
“It was a good career move.”
GORE VIDAL, on the death of Truman Capote
Reviews
Organised by subject, this is a great source of one-liners for speech writing or just amusing the company you’re in.
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