Know Your Enemy

"You lazy cocksucker. ... The time has come & gone when cheapjack scum like you can get away with the kind of scams you got rich from in the past. Get your worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter. Your type is a dime a dozen round here, Burgess, and I'm fucked if I'm going to stand for it any longer."

When, in 1973, Anthony Burgess was struggling to produce a "thinkpiece" for Rolling Stone, his suggestion that they print his new 50,000-word novella instead was not particularly well received by the magazine's Hunter S. Thompson, who declared it to be "lame half-mad bullshit".

Thompson's reply is among the missives that feature in More Letters Of Note - another book to add to my lengthening shopping list.

(Thanks to Terry for the link.)