Monday, November 26, 2007

Sophisticated Insults II, The Umpire Strikes Back

Funny coinkidink, somebody just sent me this.

When insults had class

"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)

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

"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 to Shaw, 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

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

"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

Update:
His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.
-- Woody Allen

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a great little book called
"Quotations with an Attitude" that's
full of quotations like these. It was
authored by Roy L. Stewart, and was published in 1995 by Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., of New York, N.Y., 10016, U.S.A. - It's likely out of print now, but contains 160 pages of priceless content.

Alex said...

How come there are no splendid insults by Joe Orton? You'd think there'd be more than a few from him and Halliwell.

Cliff Prince said...

The Portable Curmudgeon, by Winokur

highly recommended :)

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

That list's too sophisticated for my taste.

But hey, this means I DO have taste after all! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Excellent compilation.