Glorious Insults

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

  • “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. 
  • 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 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 anyaddress 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