courtesy of Rob Schwimmer of Polygraph Lounge classic insults "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've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." -- Groucho Marx "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 "He had delusions of adequacy." -- Walter Kerr "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 inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them." -- James Reston (about Richard Nixon) "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

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