The world would have been better off without the following "classical" writers:

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

What's wrong with creepy cougars?  *she says with an ear-to-ear grin*

I have no problem with cougars, just the creepy ones.

[Don Coyote]

What's wrong with creepy cougars?  *she says with an ear-to-ear grin*

I have no problem with cougars, just the creepy ones.

But if they don't creep, their prey will see them.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

What's wrong with creepy cougars?  *she says with an ear-to-ear grin*

I have no problem with cougars, just the creepy ones.

But if they don't creep, their prey will see them.

Exactly, easier for me to spot them.

[Don Coyote]

What's wrong with creepy cougars?  *she says with an ear-to-ear grin*

I have no problem with cougars, just the creepy ones.

But if they don't creep, their prey will see them.

Exactly, easier for me to spot them.

touché

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So Derp, who is the hunter and who is the hunted in your scenario? Or is that a little up to the observer's interpretation?

[Thurnez Isa]

Miguel de Cervantes - yeah I said it.  I hated Don Quixote, longest, most boring book I ever read! UGH!

Don Quixote is my favorite book

Yes, but you're Canadian, and allowances have to be made.

Dok,
Has watched CBC.

I have an extensive first old book collection, including the first collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry published in Canada - which by the way I love.
Fuck this

Aw, buck up--I like Emily Dickinson too. 

its not so much a matter of like/dislike
but more of one of understanding/not understanding
identifying/ not identifying

Instead apparently it's taking one of the few things humans do well, probably the only, telling stories and bitching.

[Jenne]

Creepy's in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

[Jenne]

Miguel de Cervantes - yeah I said it.  I hated Don Quixote, longest, most boring book I ever read! UGH!

Don Quixote is my favorite book

Yes, but you're Canadian, and allowances have to be made.

Dok,
Has watched CBC.

I have an extensive first old book collection, including the first collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry published in Canada - which by the way I love.
Fuck this

Aw, buck up--I like Emily Dickinson too. 

its not so much a matter of like/dislike
but more of one of understanding/not understanding
identifying/ not identifying

Instead apparently it's taking one of the few things humans do well, probably the only, telling stories and bitching.

Well, I guess what you're saying is taste is according to what you can identify with...

[Thurnez Isa]

I also think a book is the only thing of beauty mankind has ever made

[Jenne]

I also think a book is the only thing of beauty mankind has ever made

Naw.  Wait till you have kids.

Also, paintings and music are also pretty cool.

Again, I think books and literature and stories are all both self and shared expression.  Since you have to engage your reader/listener, you have to relate it to them so they're interested.  A tricky business.

It would be interesting to find out from the literary community what, indeed, constitutes a piece of LITERATURE as opposed to just fiction.

[Thurnez Isa]

Used to teach music to kids for years
kept making me bitter

[BabylonHoruv]

LOVE Goethe!

And if you thought Don Quixote was bad, you should read motherfucking 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!  OMG WORST BOOK EVER

Don't get me started on Jules Verne. 

I just did!  And really, he belongs on your OP list, because I really like a few of those others.  At least I did in h.s.  Now, admittedly, I'd probably find them vapid.

Jules Verne was important to the science fiction field in its early days.  But it reads like 3 day old shit.

Some people think he invented science fiction, but that credit goes to Mary Shelley.

I enjoy his stuff, but it kinda reminds me of L Frank Baum, good ideas that he doesn't really explore properly.

Shelley was also a much more engaging writer.

[BabylonHoruv]

To be honest, I am not a huge Dickens fan either...

Nor was I overjoyed with Longfellow...



Damn how terrible of a person does that probably make me?  

Dickens suffered from the fact that he was paid by the word. 

[BabylonHoruv]

Ayn Rand. The woman couldn't write, and her philosophy was just a reaction to her upbringing in the USSR.

Not to mention nothing even remotely good has ever come about from her philosophy besides Bioshock.
I mean think of all the bullshit shes given us, Tea Baggers, Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck, Bioshock 2.
Machiavelli has done more good for the world than her, and he could actually write too.

Plus she was practically the patron saint of creepy cougars. 

Machiavelli has done a lot of good.  If we are going to be ruled by evil they could at least do it right.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

James Joyce
Emily Bronte
Thomas Hardy
Lord Byron
Emily Dickenson
William Butler Yeats


All of the above wrote pure shit, and should have been infected with smallpox and dropped down a convenient sewer.

I've never read a single one of 'em.

Same here.