i found a buch online when i was searching for some
here they’re
) The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, ‘If you were my husband I’d give you poison,’ and 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
‘He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.’ - Winston Churchill
‘A modest little person, with much to be modest about.’ - 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
‘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 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
‘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
‘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)
‘He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.’ - Billy Wilder
‘I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.’ - Groucho Marx
‘I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’ This was unexpected and rather difficult. There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment.
(For some reason, the first time I read that over carefully, I concluded that it was an insult. Reading it again, it does seem to be a compliment, at least to the less than half that Bilbo refers to-- maybe it’s an insult to the more-than-half that he doesn’t like, and if you can say that at a party without getting booed down, it must be classy.) (Oh, everyone goes on about how needlessly detailed the Lord of the Rings books are, but rarely do they mention Tolkien’s sense of humor!)
“Pearls before swine” is pretty all-purpose, but I doubt the zing factor of that line in the future, will ever equal the Parker/Boothe exchange. (“Age before beauty…” “Pearls before swine.”) And when Jesus first said it, of course, since, hey, who he callin’ non-kosher?
Paraphrased from a conversation I overheard between two friends of mine --not friends of each other, mind:
A: (aggressively) So, what, you’re saying I’m a dog?
B: No! I don’t go around stating the obvious.
(No love lost since they never liked each other, and I couldn’t help snickering, but it is kind of sad if there’s some good friendships out there that had to fall out for the sake of a witty comeback.)