During the 1988 vice president debate Dan Quayle who had compared himself to Jack Kennedy was destroyed by a famous retort - Lloyd Bentsen's said: "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Variations of this memorable verbal slap have been echoed by people from Biden to Reagan.
Anonymous actress: I enjoyed reading your book [Past Imperfect]. Who wrote it for you?
Ilka Chase: Darling, I'm so glad that you liked it. Who read it to you?
Lady Astor: Winston: If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your coffee.
Sir Winston Churchill: Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it.
Henry Clay: I would rather be right than be president.
Congressman Reed: He doesn't have to worry. He'll never be either.
Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Lord Sandwich: Really, Mr. Wilkes, I don't know whether you'll die on the gallows or of the pox.
John Wilkes: That depend, my lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.
Lewis Morris: It is a conspiracy of silence against me - a conspiracy of silence. What should I do.
Oscar Wilde: Join it.
Anonymous singer: You know, my dear, I insured my voice for fifty thousand dollars.
Miriam Hopkins: That's wonderful. And what did you do with the money?
Wife of prominent politician to Winston Churchill (with distain in her voice):Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!
Mr. Churchill: Yes, madam, and you are ugly. But in the morning, I will be sober, and you will still be ugly.
Frederic Leighton (to James McNeill Whistler): My dear Whistler, you leave your pictures in such a sketchy, unfinished state. Why don't you ever finish them?
James McNeill Whistler, (in reply): My dear Leighton, why do you ever
begin yours?
Joe Frazier (about Muhammad Ali): He's phony, using his blackness to get his way.
Muhammad Ali: Joe Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wildlife.
Noel Coward to Edna Ferber, who was wearing a tailored suit: "You look almost like a man."
Edna Ferber: "So do you,"
I have more talent in my smallest fart than you have in your entire body.
Walter Matthau (to Barbra Streisand)
I loathe you. You revolt me stewing in your consumption . . . you are a
loathsome reptile - I hope you die.
D. H. Lawrence (to Katherine Mansfield)
George Bernard Shaw (to Winston Churchill): Am reserving two
tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one.
Churchill: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will
attend second - if there is one.
Mary Anderson approached the director Alfred Hitchcock and asked, "What is my best side, Mr. Hitchcock?"
"My dear, you're sitting on it."
Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's response to learning that
Richard Nixon called him an a-hole:
"I've been called worse things by better men."
Of Clemmet Atlee, Churchill said "He's a sheep in sheep's clothing."
Physicist Wolfgang Pauli upon reading a submitted paper: "This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
John Oliver: "Stephen, You say that there could be an infinite amount of parallel universes."
Stephen Hawking: "Yes."
John Oliver: "Does that mean there could be a universe out there where I am smarter than you?"
Stephen Hawking: "Yes, John, and there might even be a universe where you're actually funny."
James McNeill Whistler Vs. Oscar Wilde
Wilde: I wish I had said that.
Whistler: You will, Oscar, you will.