When Insults Had Class
From an email we liked

• The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."



• A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."



• "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr



• "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill



• "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill



• "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow



• "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
  "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)



• "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas



• "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln



• "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain



• "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde



• "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
  "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.



• "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop



• "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright



• "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb



• "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson



• "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating



• "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E. Leonard



• "He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford



• "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed



• "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand



• "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker



• "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain



• "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West



• "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde



• "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)


• "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder



• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx