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on fellow British novelist Ian Fleming
    Drama critics are there to show gay actors what it is like to have a wife.
    Hugh Leonard, Irish dramatist
    British journalist and broadcaster Gilbert Harding was at a wedding when a fellow guest observed that the bride and groom made an ideal couple.
    “You should know,” Harding said. “You’ve slept with both of them.”
    Chuang Tzu was born in the fourth century BC. The publication of this book in English, over two thousand years after his death, is obviously premature.
    Bernard Levin, British journalist
    He is like someone on a quiz show who insists on giving answers in greater detail than is actually necessary.
    Journalist William Leith on fellow Brit, the writer and composer Anthony Burgess
    Anyone making love to Germaine Greer should have his guide dog confiscated and be awarded the Victoria Cross.
    Bernard Manning, British comedian
    His very frankness is falsity. In fact, it seems falser than his insincerity.
    New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield on her husband John Middleton Murry
    Tragedy is when I cut my little finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
    Mel Brooks, American film maker
    Before they made S.J. Perlman, they broke the mould.
    Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian
    From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
    Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian
    The triumph of sugar over diabetes.
    American drama critic George Jean Nathan on the works of British writer J.M. Barrie
    The conscientious Canadian critic is one who subscribes to the New York Times so that he knows at first hand what his opinions should be.
    Eric Nichol, Canadian critic
    A hyena that wrote poetry in tombs.
    German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri
    Kingsley Amis once said that sex was a great cure for a hangover, which indeed must be the case, because if you thought Kingsley Amis was about to make love to you, you’d certainly avoid getting drunk in the first place.
    Joseph O’Connor on his fellow British writer
    Jane Austen’s books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.
    Mark Twain, American writer
    One of the surest signs of Conrad’s genius is that women dislike his works.
    George Orwell on his fellow British writer
    A huge pendulum attached to a small clock.
    Russian critic Ivan Panin on British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Take an idiot from a lunatic asylum and marry him to an idiot woman, and the fourth generation of the connection should be a good publisher from an American point of view.
    Mark Twain, American writer
    Hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil—you’ll never get a job working for a tabloid.
    Phil Pastoret, British journalist
    I would praise Joad’s new book, but modesty forbids.
    Bertrand Russell on fellow British philosopher C.E.M. Joad
    Agate: My dear Lillian. I have long wanted to tell you that in my opinion you are the second-best actress in London.
    Braithwaite: Thank you so much. I shall cherish that, coming from the second-best dramatic critic.
    An exchange between American critic James Agate and British actress Lillian Braithwaite
    ‘Mar-gott, how lovely to see you!’
    ‘No, dear, the “t” is silent, as in “Harlow”.
    An exchange between Margot Asquith and actress Jean Harlow, who, out of ignorance, pronounced the ‘t’ in Asquith’s first name.
    Only a flaw of nature prevented Vita Sackville-West from being one of nature’s gentlemen.
    Edith Sitwell, British poet
    Reading Proust is like bathing in someone else’s dirty water.
    American critic Alexander Woollcott on the French writer
    I do not think that Rousseau’s poem Ode to Posterity will reach its destination.
    Voltaire on his fellow French writer
    Who can define him? His style is chaos illuminated by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has