Twain vs Wilde: The Wittiest Feud in History

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MARK TWAIN vs OSCAR WILDE go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.

OSCAR WILDE

I can resist everything, Samuel, except temptation. Can your plain American prose say anything half so quotable?

MARK TWAIN

My prose put food on the table, Oscar. Yours put you in a prison cell breaking rocks for two years.

OSCAR WILDE

I was merely dying beyond my means. Even bankrupt, I had better taste than a man who wears a white suit to every funeral.

MARK TWAIN

I went bankrupt too — then paid back every creditor to the penny. You died in a rented Paris room, arguing with the wallpaper.

OSCAR WILDE

'One of us had to go,' I told the wallpaper. And I meant it.

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