Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c742IR // #c742Verbatim excerpt
"Udolpho! oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do." "Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation." "Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe," said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.

— Source: Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)

[Use when]

Use when someone dismisses an entire form they cannot name a single work in. Ask for the exception; watch it collapse.

[Why it matters]

The loudest contempt for a medium comes from those who have never touched it: Thorpe despises all novels, exempts Radcliffe's as the one worth reading, and does not know Radcliffe wrote Udolpho. His exception proves he never looked.

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