Literate put-downs

"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
- Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man & worships his creator."
- John Bright

"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've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb

"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 is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
- Samuel Johnson

"He had delusions of adequacy."
- Walter Kerr

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
- Jack E. Leonard

"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

"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

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of 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 has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
- Oscar Wilde

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
- Billy Wilder

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination."
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)