Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Glorious Insults as an Art Form - Quotations

GLORIOUS INSULTS

These glorious insults use words from an era prior to the English language becoming what it has become today :

  • "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

  • A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "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."

  • "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, 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

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

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

  • "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

  • "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 I'm afraid this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx