Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations - Softcover

It's hard to resist a book that has for its own jacket copy the following sentence: "Cruel, snide, rude and bitchy, the Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations records the human spirit at its least spiritual." For once, there's truth in advertising: this book is a glorious celebration of how scathingly, hilariously, and aptly mean people have been to one another through the centuries. In its pages you'll find writers skewering writers; politicians badmouthing other politicians; nations insulting other nations; and, of course, critics savaging everyone in sight. There's Georges Clemenceau on the United States: "America is the only nation in history which, miraculously, has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization." Or Robert Hughes on the artist Jeff Koons: "The last bit of methane left in the intestine of the dead cow that is post-modernism." It's all good, dirty fun--and great for plagiarizing the next time you need witty dinner party repartee. Just be careful who you sit next to....

Jonathon Green is a well-known writer and broadcaster who has published widely on aspects of popular and oral culture, and has compiled a number of dictionaries of quotations and of slang.