WHEN INSULTS HAD CLASS

Thanks to Joan Powell for gathering these insults and for letting me use her list. These glorious insults are from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.

The famous 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 (my favorite)


"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 an 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 Marx


Aren't those clever? The sort of things I wish I'd said but couldn't think of until hours later. Which reminds me of one of my favorite poems from years ago by then Representative John Jarman of Oklahoma:
 
"Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chains have bound me.
I think of things I should have said,
When others were around me.
 
And of such woeful waste of wit,
Constructively I weep,
And often in the still of night,
I kick myself to sleep."
 
Thanks for stopping by today.
 

Please return on Friday for a big day! Sandra Crowley will be here to launch her new romantic suspense, CAUGHT BY A CLOWN and we're having a party. You're invited!