Wish I Had Said This...

[L Verge]

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

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." I had heard that it was John Wilkes who said this.
* * *
"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
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"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
* * *
"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