[OFB Cafe] The lost art of Insults

[Donald Spoon]

These insults are from an era before the English language got boiled 
down to 4-letter words.
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"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).
 
'Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?'
    - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

"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)
 
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
    - Groucho Marx
 
'There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.'
    - Jack E. Leonard
 
'He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.'
    - Robert Redford
 
'They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human 
knowledge.'
    - Thomas Brackett Reed
 
'He has Van Gogh's ear for music.'
    - Billy Wilder
 
'He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.'
    - Abraham Lincoln
 
'A modest little person, with much to be modest about. '
    - Winston Churchill
 

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."