““Is that as bad as it sounds?” Floyd asked.
“No,” Auger said. “It’s worse. A lot worse.””
Source: Century Rain (2004), Chapter 30 (p. 466)
“To a bad king a worse counsellor.”
A re malvagio, consiglier peggiore.
Canto II, stanza 2 (tr. Max Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
Comment on the musical Abie's Irish Rose
Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed): Art. Marx Brothers p. 297
Source: The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories
“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)
“Bad as euphemism is, however, indirection is worse.”
Free Speech and Plain Language (1936)
Context: Bad as euphemism is, however, indirection is worse. I notice that a writer in a recent magazine gives this advice to budding newspaper men:
“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse”
“To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart.”
"The Mad Farmer Manifesto: The First Amendment" in The Country of Marriage (1973).
Poems
