June 12, 2008 Issue

When Insults Had Class

There was a time when words were used beautifully. These glorious insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language was boiled down to four-letter words…

A prime example is this exchange between Winston Churchill and Lady Astor. She said, "If you were my husband, I'd give you poison.” Churchill’s response: "If you were my wife, I'd take it."

Here are some more:
"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, referring to Ernest Hemingway
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway, referring to Faulkner
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. " - Abraham Lincoln
"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 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
"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 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 this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

(Top)