The Lighter Side (Sept 2015)

These clever insults are from an era “before” the English language got boiled down to 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, "on 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 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
 
“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
 
"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