TOP TEN TUESDAY | FAVE QUOTES WITH SWEARING

WARNING: If you don’t like swearing, go read something else now. You’ve been warned.

We just had a prompt about best first lines of books, and I found that task odious. So to spare myself all the angst and potential concussion associated with books falling on my head while searching for quotes I like (or even remember), I’ve decided to do something a little more fun. Here are quotes by authors that use swear words, or talk about using them (or even better, do both). You’re welcome.

“The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or a lack of verbal interest is just a fucking lunatic.” – Stephen Fry

“This place is weird as fuck.” – Margaret Atwood

“We should keep at it. Swearing is a powerful instrument, socially and emotionally. If women and men want to communicate as equals, we need to be equals in the ways in which we are allowed to express ourselves. Sod social censure. Let us allow men to cry and women to swear: we need both means of expression. I like this observation from British-American anthropologist Ashley Montagu, writing in the 1960s: ‘If women wept less they would swear more… Today instead of swooning or breaking into tears, she will often swear and then do whatever is indicated. It is, in our view, a great advance upon the old style.’
Too fucking right.” – Emma Byrne from Swearing Is Good for You

“I hate it when people say swearing isn’t necessary. Things not being necessary is what makes life interesting, the little extras in life.” – Stephen Fry again, because of course.

“Of all fuckin’ days”
“Okay, please don’t say fuckin’.”
She shoots me a self-conscious glance. “I thought we liked cussing.”
“We love cussing. But we say the fucking g. I don’t want to hear that apostrophe, Mom.” – Becky Albertalli from Leah on the Offbeat

“I thought it was endearing when we first got together. By the end I wanted to stab him in the hand every time he dismissed my cursing as an uncreative vocabulary. I think being able to use one little four letter word to convey a hundred different thoughts is pretty fucking creative.” – Alafair Burke from The Ex

“Rick, I’m holding a do-I-give-a-shit-ometer in my hand, and the needle’s not moving. Shut up.” – Douglas Coupland from Player One

“(On the word “fuck”)

‘Oh, come on, Mum,’ I sighed at her protest. ‘It’s just an old Anglo-Saxon word for the female organ which has been adopted by an inherently misogynist language as a negative epithet. It’s the same as “fuck”, it basically means the same as copulate, but the latter is perfectly acceptable. Why? Because copulate has its roots in Latin and Latin reminds us that we are a sophisticated, learned species, not the rutting animals that these prehistoric grunts would have us appear to be, and isn’t that really the issue here? We don’t want to admit that we are essentially animals? We want to distinguish ourselves from the fauna with grand conceits and elaborate language; become angels worthy of salvation, not dumb creatures consigned to an earthly, terminal end. It’s just a word, Mum; a sound meaning a thing; and your disgust is just denial of a greater horror: that our consciousness is not an indication of our specialness but the terrifying key to knowing how truly insignificant we are.’

She told me to go fuck myself.” – Simon Pegg from Nerd Do Well

“Well, I’d say fuck too, if I were me. I’d say it backward and forward and around the block, fuck this and fuck that and fuck it all at once, twice, three times.” – Colum McCann from Let the Great World Spin

“If you go home with somebody, and they don’t have books, don’t fuck ’em!” – John Waters

Alright folks, that’s me for the week! Hope you all enjoyed a little profanity to start off your week. I certainly did, though it was harder to find good quotes with “fuck” in them than I thought it would be! If you have any great ones, please share them below!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.