Classic insults and ripostes...

Classic insults and ripostes, via Maggie's Farm.  I've seen most of these before, but I like the collection...

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
Disraeli: "That depends, sir, on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

Walter Kerr: "He had delusions of adequacy."

Winston Churchill: "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

Clarence Darrow: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway): "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Moses Hadas: "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

Mark Twain: "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

Oscar Wilde: "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill: "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one."
Winston Churchill, in response: "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."

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

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

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

Samuel Johnson: "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."

Paul Keating: "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

Charles, Count Talleyrand: "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."

Forrest Tucker:"He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him."

Mark Twain: "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

Mae West: "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

Oscar Wilde: “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

Andrew Lang: "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts ... for support, rather than illumination."

Billy Wilder: "He has Van Gogh's ear for Music."

Groucho Marx: "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."