Tag Archives: humor

Rotten Rejections: Madame Bovary

Posted on September 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

“You have buried your novel underneath a heap of details which are well done but utterly superfluous….”

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Dictator

Posted on September 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Dictator, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Ben Bagdikian on American Journalism

Posted on September 11, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on a ukulele: the instrument is too crude for the work, for the audience and for the performer.”

Ben Bagdikian

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Thorstein Veblen on Research

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where one question grew before.”

Thorstein Veblen

“Evolution of the Scientific Point of View” (1908)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Write It Right: Article

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Article. A good and useful word, but used without meaning by shopkeepers; as, ‘A good article of vinegar,’ for a good vinegar.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Rotten Reviews Omnibus: Saul Bellow

Posted on September 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

The Adventures of Augie March

“All of Those Words, in denominations of from three to five letters, are present.”

Library Journal

Henderson the Rain King

“The novelist who doesn’t like meanings writes an allegory; the allegory means that men should not mean but be. Ods bodkins. The reviewer looks at the evidence and wonders if he should damn the author and praise the book, or praise the author and damn the book. And is it possible, somehow or other to praise or damn, both? He isn’t sure.”

Reed Whittemore, New Republic

“At times Henderson is too greyly overcast with thought to be more than a dun Quixote.”

Time

Herzog 

“There is no effort toward decency—many of the conversations that come back to Herzog are foul-mouthed, and his own sexual actions and reminiscences are unrestrained.

America

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

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The Algonquin Wits: Ring Lardner on the Costs of Raising Sons

Posted on September 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Ring once referred to his prep-school-aged sons as his ‘four grandsons,’ explaining to a puzzled acquaintance that they cost him ‘Four grand a year.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Cabinet

Posted on September 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Cabinet, n. The principal persons charged with the mismanagement of a government, the charge being commonly well founded.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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The Algonquin Wits: Dorothy Parker on Teaching Undergraduates

Posted on August 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Mrs. Parker taught for a time at Los Angeles State College, where she found the students very ‘narrow.’ When reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, for example, the students felt the book was too dirty. ‘But then Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize,’ Mrs. Parker recalled. ‘After that they behaved as if they had given it to him.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Demagogue

Posted on August 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Demagogue, n. A political opponent.” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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