ARTICLE: "The 50 Best Literary Put-Downs"

Stylist.co.uk has put together a list of the 50 "snarkiest jibes in literature". Here are a select few:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

"Well, well, well, well. If it isn't fat, stinking billygoat Billy-Boy in poison. How art thou, thy globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the garbles, if you have any garbles, you eunuch jelly thou."

My Booky Wook by Russell Brand

"I couldn't possibly have sex with someone with such a slender grasp on grammar!"

After Claude by Iris Owens

"If looks could kill, you'd soon find out that yours couldn't."






 Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

"It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two."

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

"She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me"

The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell

"He is simply a hole in the air."

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

"Any woman who counts on her face is a fool."

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

"Everything people do that doesn't work has to be somebody else's fault. Next time you know, geezers'll be suing the government for getting old and kids'll be taking their mommies to court because they come out ugly."

Hannibal by Thomas Harris

"On a related subject, Signore Pazzi, I must confess to you: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife."

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

"As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking."

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

"All morons hate it when you call them a moron."








See all 50 "put downs" on their website.