[Iain Rowan]

For a little light relief - everyone here is very supportive of one another, and it's been the same wherever I've seen writers gather, virtually or in the flesh.

Not always the case though, as this article shows: the thirty harshest author on author insults in history. Some choice ones in the comments there, too.

I like Oscar Wilde's comment on the poet Alexander Pope: "There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope."

 

[Carol (was Dara)]

Great link!  Even though I'm a Jane Austen fan I can't help finding Mark Twaine's thoughts on her amusing:

“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

Twaine get's if back from William Faulkner, who describes him as:

“A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”

Love it. We're always debating around here about the professionalism of reviewing our peers, but can you imagine if we talked about each other like this?

 

[greenpen]

Great link! Even though I'm a Jane Austen fan I can't help finding Mark Twaine's thoughts on her amusing:

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice,' I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

Just make sure you keep away from the writings of Ambrose bierce then

 

[vrabinec]

I wish I was selling a million books a year so I could poke fun at some authors, but since I haven't even finished a book yet, it would be the height of hypocricy

 

[Andrew Ashling]

Thanks. I needed that.

This is not so much an insult aimed at a specific writer, as an insult at writers in general.

"Times are bad. Children disobey their parents and everybody is writing a book."

~Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 BCE)

(He probably meant indies)

 

[AnnetteL]

Those quotes always crack me up.

But yes, in today's world, they wouldn't go over at all. When Stephen King had the audacity to say he didn't think Stephenie Meyer was a great writer (he wasn't particularly insulting, either), he was lambasted.

In today's world, we have to play nice in the sandbox.

 

[Christopher Bunn]

"Times are bad. Children disobey their parents, and everybody is writing a book."

~Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 - 43 BCE)

That's awesome. And somehow inspiring.

 

[Anne Victory]

Omigod... that's awesome. A couple of my favorites:

"Oh dear, when the solemn ass brays! brays! brays!"

"[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples."

They were pretty harsh. And the best part of it - not a single curse-word to be seen

 

[Julia March]

These aren't just zingers, though they are that. They're incisive, no matter whether you love or hate the writers involved.

 

[Steve Silkin]

My favorite wasn't on the list:

"Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'

- Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman

 

[BTackitt]

Love it. We're always debating around here about the professionalism of reviewing our peers, but can you imagine if we talked about each other like this?

I know a couple of authors here on KB that could get away with all kinds of ^*&%% directed at each other and we would all laugh...

Hey they already did it... it's THAT thread....

 

[R. M. Reed]

Mark Twain also wrote an essay tearing apart "The Last of the Mohicans." I tried reading Mohicans and had to agree.

 

[PJJones]

Uhhhh! I had to read Mohicans in college. I have to agree with Twain as well.

I suppose, since my novel is a parody of other novels, I've got no right to point fingers at other authors who criticize. LOL! PJ

 

[RobertLCollins]

Twain's essay on the Leatherstocking Tales is a great read. I like the part about broken twigs. Yet it also has some pretty good advice. Now there's a skill...

 

[xandy3]

Those quotes always crack me up.

But yes, in today's world, they wouldn't go over at all. When Stephen King had the audacity to say he didn't think Stephenie Meyer was a great writer (he wasn't particularly insulting, either), he was lambasted.

In today's world, we have to play nice in the sandbox.

You know, I for one did not think that what King said was all that bad. In fact, I'm kind of glad that he had made that statement, to show that it's not just us "jelus indies" that make such claims.
Not only that, he's definitely entitled to his opinion.
Then again, aren't we all?

 

[Laura Lond]

I've just read through the whole thing - LOL, these are funny!  Some of them rather mean, too.

 

[Ryne Billings]

I was expecting King's insult to Meyers to be on there.

But they were pretty good anyways.

 

[valeriec80]

I'm so glad Byron hates Keats. It justifies my hatred of Byron all the more.

Very amusing link.

 

[MaryKingsley]

Thanks for posting this.  I have to agree that Twain's comment on Austen was just the best.

 

[SuzanneTyrpak]

This is why you'll frequently find writers at the bar.