Virginia Woolf

Honestly, Virginia wins because she can insult a room and still make it look elegant. That is the skill.

And you say that from a poem that sounds like it was revised by a filing cabinet.

At least my eyebrows knew what they were doing; some of your verses still look lost in Holborn.

You say that from a novel built like a beautiful panic attack, Virginia.

Both of you are unbearable, which is why the Bloomsbury dinner table survived so long.

Poets are just novelists with the decency to stop before everyone gets lost.

This is why the public prefers poets. Less furniture, more sense.

Yes, and I admire the courage it takes to punish readers that efficiently.

Says the woman who turns a breakfast table into a weather system.

And yet somehow it has more life than your footnotes, Thomas.

And yet here you are, proving brevity is just confidence with a weaker vocabulary.

Both of you are exhausting, but Virginia did just reduce a whole era to one accurate sentence.

That’s rich coming from someone who writes feelings like they’re hiding from the police.

T.S. wants to be misunderstood on purpose and Ernest wants to be understood by force; honestly, impeccable range.

I’d argue, but I’ve never trusted a man who puts footnotes in his moods.