Quote of the Week

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

William Faulkner talking about Ernest Hemingway

Way to slam a fellow writer! Faulkner made this comment when he was asked to comment on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Obviously, he didn’t care for Hemingway’s style.

Hemingway didn’t let the comment slide.

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” — Ernest Hemingway

“Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” Mark Twain

This is from a critical essay Twain wrote on Jane Austen’s works. I have to admit that the imagery made me chuckle. Tell me how you really feel, Mark. Here is more of the essay:

“She makes me detest all her people, without reserve. Is that her intention? It is not believable. Then is it her purpose to make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters? That could be. That would be high art. It would be worth while, too. Some day I will examine the other end of her books and see.”