Insults: Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

Don’t you wish you could always find the right words at just the right time to answer anyone who has upset you? You will find that reply in this book. It has over 750 insults from some of the wittiest, cleverest and smartest writers that have proved that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

This book of insults has been collected from the well-known to the hardly ever heard of; from the famous to the anonymous, from newspapers and TV to long forgotten and folded magazines.

Of course Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde appear but so does Raquel Welch and Frank Zappa along with Frank Warren (boxing promoter) and Violet Carson (soap actress). Naturally Queen Victoria was not amused but you might be by this huge collection that has ‘the style of being knocked up on a condemned typewriter in a garden shed in Wapping’. (FOUL Magazine – long since folded).

Insults have been creamed from books of quotations, the Bible, the works of Shakespeare and others such as this from a newspaper story quoting an anonymous British Rail engineer who remarked: ‘Basically, they’re crap’.

A book to dip into, browse at random or use as a study aid before an important meeting. You will not be disappointed. Don’t be like Groucho Marx: ‘From the moment I picked up your book till the moment I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it.’