The late H.L. Mencken has always been among my favorite misanthropes. Like all satirists, he took a dim view of human nature.

Dorothy Parker was one of the great transients of American literary history, yet she remains more permanent than most writers ...

She casually drops meaningful epigrams into her spinning web of language, but it is the pauses between the snarling tones and the sudden hysterics that carry much of the meaning. This is not ...