essays & effluvia: The Art of The Well-Crafted Repartee

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The Art of The Well-Crafted Repartee

Sadly, we are losing The Art of The Well-Crafted Repartee.

Here are some examples of classic repartees from a time gone by:

"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)

"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 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)