These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.
**
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." **
**
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 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, 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 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
Warmie
