Authors are weird people. Don't bother denying it, we all know its true.

Hemmingway liked his wives to pretend to be his daughters, and appearantly had a turn for transvestititism and gender reversal (according to Mary, anwyay).

Voltaire once responded to a critic by writing "Sir, I am currently in the smallest room of my house with your letter before me. Soon it will be behind me."

Authors are weird people.

What's your weirdest author factoid or pithiest author quote?

For the sake of the thing, let's not go for Pratchett.

"If I wanted to read Wuthering Heights, I'd shoot my self."

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." ~Douglas Adams

He's got some other weird ones too but their mostly a) funny b) probably would make sense in context or c) both.

Douglas Adams once had a job as a security guard for a wealthy family of Arabs. his job was to sit outside their suite of rooms at some posh hotel, and look intimidating in case anyone came to assassinate them.

He said that his planned course of action was to run away, screaming like a little girl, at the first sign of anyone brandishing a grenade

"If I wanted to read Wuthering Heights, I'd shoot my self."

This about the author J.R.R Tolkien.

"Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary (among others, he initiated the entries wasp and walrus)."

But what did they call wasps before? Them bitey bee thingys?
and were walrus's "lumps of blubber wit big teeth?" :? It makes you think

Heh. One of the more noteworthy freelance contributors to the OED was an american civil war vet, confined to an asylum for, I think, criminal insanity?

might be mixing up a few people into one, tho

"If I wanted to read Wuthering Heights, I'd shoot my self."

Lol, at least he is using it as something constructive, toilet paper!

Byron had sex with his sister and bragged about it.

Cat Clash

HC Andersen, was afraid of death, amongst other things, and always carried a piece of rope with him (so that he could escape if the building he was in caught fire) and a paper stating that he wanted them to be really sure he was dead before burring him. I can't remember the wording exactly but I think they were to check he didn't have any pulse at all, after that they were to cut his heart out.

That which does not kill me has committed a serious mistake.

Thomas Moore who wrote Utopia in the 16th century would wear hair shirts and when a suitor came to ask for his daughters hand in marriage Moore took him up to the daughters room where she was sleeping naked, ripped off the covers and said: "Thats what your marrying."

Nutter. No wonder he was hanged.

PhD Student: Research information sheet

There once was a man named Bruce
Who liked to sit on a spruce
He ate lots of chowder
And yelled at me louder:
"I'm talking to YOU, Mrs. Hughes!"
--> The Literary Genius: Mowgli

Not so much a story about his weirdness as a few others have already metioned him- but a great (in my opinion) quote from Byron. Which I may use for my sig!

'All men are intrinsically rascals, and I am only sorry that, not being a dog, I can't bite them'.

Lord Byron


I just like the fact that he used the word rascal- not a word you'd hear very often unless you watched lots of Bug's bunny cartoons.

My maternal grandmother owns Byron's writing case. She's bequeathed it to my cousin in her will, which I think is most unfair.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Wow :o That is pretty amazing.

Could you not secretly go to your gran's and write your name on the bottom of the writing case- then you can childishly say:

'nah nah na na na, Cousin X it's got my name on it, and then so that it's really yours 'baggsy' it. :p

Who can be surprised at anything Byron said. He was under the influence of recreational pharmaceuticals most of the time. Which brings us back to Douglas Adams...........

[quote:ia"]Byron had sex with his sister and bragged about it.[/quote]

Why was she really hot? :?

might have been...