Polite Insults

When Insults Had Class (no 4-letter words):

1. 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."
   
   
2. 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."
   
   
3. "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr
   
   
4. "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill
   
   
5. "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill
   
   
6. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
   
   
7. "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)
   
   
8. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas
   
   
9. "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln
   
   
10. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
    
    
11. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde
    
    
12. "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.
    
    
13. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop
    
    
14. "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright
    
    
15. "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb
    
    
16. "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson
    
    
17. "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating
    
    
18. "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." Jack E. Leonard
    
    
19. "He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." - Robert Redford
    
    
20. "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed
    
    
21. "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand
    
    
22. "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker
    
    
23. "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain
    
    
24. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
    
    
25. "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts.. . for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
    
    
26. "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
    
    
27. "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx
    
    
28. "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

[ Author Unknown -- from Randy, via 'Buffalos Chips' (buffalos-g-jokes.yahoogroups.com) ]