I'm a curious little Dickens

I admire scholars and classic writers like the next trainee journalist. This includes bleak authors (Charles Dickens) and poets (Oscar Wilde). Beyond the grave or not, their work has to be respected, as we are told they changed publishing forever. I worried what they may have thought if they read the new generation of writers, so I looked for supportive quotes in old books, but found maybe it is me who should question them, after all we live in a google world now, not Harsh Times. Here are a few quotes I had issues with:

Edward Lytton – “The pen is mightier than the sword.” – He can dress it up as a metaphor all he likes, but if it came down to the crunch in an Arabic street fight, I’d back the guy with the sword.

Charles Dickens – “I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States.” – Fair enough if he found the queues too long down at Disney-World, but what about the generous buffets in Florida hotels? Even Oliver Twist wouldn’t ask for seconds.

Oscar Wilde - “Beauty is a form of genius that is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.” – He obviously never read Heat Magazine.

If the quoted were alive, and trusted the Internet, spending a few lessons getting online, and managed to read my silly ramblings, I’m sure they’d disagree, but I'd delete their posted comments, as I couldn’t give a Dickens if Oscar was Wilde about my work.