The Art of the Insult

Continuing with our on-again off-again theme of priceless insults, consider W. Somerset Maugham. In his great collection of anecdotes and epigrams, The Writer’s Notebook, Maugham, perhaps the king of barbs, describes a particular acquaintance like this: “She is not only a liar, she is a mythomaniac who will invent malicious stories that have no foundation in fact and will tell them so convincingly, with such circumstantial detail, that you are almost persuaded she believes them herself. She is grasping and will hesitate at no dishonesty to get what she wants. She is a snob and will impudently force her acquaintance on persons who she knows wish to avoid it. She is a climber, but with the paltriness of her mind is satisfied with the second rate; the secretaries of great men are her prey, not the great men themselves. She is vindictive, jealous and envious. She is a quarrelsome bully. She is vain, vulgar and ostentatious. There is real badness in her." Good job, Mr. Maugham! I do not know who "she" is, but I definitely wouldn't do lunch with her at Le Pain Quotidien.