Wordsmiths

A few witticisms that I came across recently:

• Mark Twain on the epic novel War and Peace: "Tolstoy carelessly neglects to include a boat race."
• Acerbic New Yorker writer Dorothy Parker (right), when asked to use the term "horticulture" correctly in a sentence: "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."
• The character Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest: "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

Indeed they are.