"This is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect University of Chicago students to come up with" – Professor W J T Mitchell, U Chicago

"Sincerest apologies to Shakespeare, Stendhal and Joyce: how were we to know it would come to this?" – Mashable.com

"A tool to aid the digestion of great literature" – Guardian

"The trouble with Twitter is, I think, that too many twits might make a t**t." – David Cameron

"Pretentious, maybe. Precocious, certainly." – Guardian.co.uk

"... a move likely to be greeted by book-lovers with a mixture of horror and why-didn't-I-think-of-that jealousy." – Kim Janssen, Chicago Tribune

"The U. of C. is known for serious thinking combined with a sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humor that always amused me ... When I checked out the biographies of the guys who are doing it, I couldn't help thinking it might be really good." – Andrea Walker, The New Yorker, Book Bench (online)

"Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Shakespeare, rolling over in his grave." – The Wall Street Journal

"Dear god, help us all… apparently two 19 year-old college students, Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman, are so lazy that they can't even take the time to read Cliffnotes anymore." – Zooloo.com

"Fans of the classics will either be delighted or appalled." – Guardian.co.uk/media

"Twitterature makes me want to punch someone, preferably the "authors." They're in Chicago. I'm gonna take a road trip..." – @damig, Twitter

"Just fucking shoot me now..." – Mike C, grouchyconservativepundits.com