Have you ever read a passage in a book (or heard a character in a movie have a book-related conversation) and think “Damn, that was an awesome burn! Save that one for later!” Only you never really find the time to use your arsenal of comebacks?
Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
There are so many insults throughout literature, but we won’t bore you with a super long list. Here are our Pop 20 Iconic Literary Insults!
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“My dear, I don’t give a damn.” -Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
2. “If your brains were dynamite, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake
3. “I desire that we be better strangers.” -William Shakespeare, As You Like It
4. “You should be women and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.” -William Shakespeare, Macbeth
5. “Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have.” -JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. “You are the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.” -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
7. “I misjudged you…. You’re not a moron. You’re only a case of arrested development.” -Earnest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
8. “You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.” -Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
9. “This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.” -Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
10. “You’re not worth the trouble it’d take to hit you.” -Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
11.“And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.” -PG Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally
12. “You’re a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!” -William Golding, The Lord of the Flies
13. “If you will forgive me for being so personal–I do not like your face.” -Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express
14. “Oh, my sweet summer child…what do you know of fear?” -GRR Martin, A Game of Thrones
15. “It’s a nasty view of things … no wonder you are afraid of yourself and your own unhappiness.” –D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
16. “She would not shed a tear, she would not waste the rest of her years simmering in the maggot broth of memory.”
-Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
17. “Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward.” -William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
18. “The man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate.” -GRR Martin, A Feast for Crows
19. “You see, but you do not observe.” -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes
20. “There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.” -William Shakespeare, Henry V
Of course, I am also partial to literary insults that make their way into movies. When confronted by Mrs. McMichael’s “She’s our very own Jane Austen. She died an old maid, didn’t she?” Edith Cushing simply replied, “Actually, I’d rather be Mary Shelley; she died a widow.”
BAM!
What are some of your favorite literary insults? Did it make the list? Share with us in the comments!
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