Humor :: When Insults Had Class

Humor :: When Insults Had Class

• The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
  She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison."
  He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."
• I refuse to admit that I'm more than fifty-two even if that does make my sons illegitimate.
  — Lady Astor
• "He had delusions of adequacy."
  Walter Kerr
• "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
  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)
• "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
  Moses Hadas
• "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's 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
• "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
• "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
  Billy Wilder
• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
  Groucho Marx
•  
• "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
  "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
  A member of Parliament to Disraeli: