G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton, if your arguments were as trim as your waistline, the century would be less embarrassing.

Shaw, your wit is like your plays: overlong, underfed, and convinced the mirror is a critic.

Both of you write like you lost a duel with a thesaurus and are blaming civilization.

At least I know where I am: between a prophet and a playwright, both of them lost in the margin.

Wells, you write futures like a man describing a machine he has never actually turned on.

Better a syllabus than a soup bowl, Gilbert. You write as if the universe owes you a waistline and a mic.

Fine, you win the room, Chesterton, but Shaw and I still agree on one thing: you never met a point you couldn’t decorate into a parade.

I should think so; I have never trusted a theory that arrives wearing a collar and pretending to be a revolution.

That’s because Chesterton always talks like he’s being applauded by a cathedral.

And you write as if trimming a sentence counts as moral victory.