You have to keep your eye on the job because words are very sly, the rubbishy ones go into hiding and you have to dig them out—repetition, synonyms, things that simply don’t mean anything.
[Isaak Babel]

How is it that there is a Luther insult generator, a Shakespeare insult generator, but no *Nietzsche* insult generator? “Du geistig Plattfüssiger!” is an enormous keeper. (It doesn’t, alas, translate with any zing: in English it’s just “you mental flatfoot.” There must be more deeply ingrained prejudice against flatfootedness in Germany, because in German it sounds utterly crushing to me.)

But while we’re on insults: Flavorwire has a list of thirty great author-on-author insults.

One favorite:

15. William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

14. Ernest Hemingway on William Faulkner

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”