The Brickbat Boys

There’s been much talk recently about how uncivil American discourse has become. Insults have been flying right, left, and center--on Capitol Hill and off. But as Ivor Davis (whose update of his landmark book, Five to Die, about the Charles Manson murders, is selling well) makes clear with this set of classic insults, today’s verbal abusers have nothing on their predecessors:

“He had delusions of adequacy.”--Walter Kerr

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”--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).

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”--Moses Hadas

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I
approved of it.”--Mark Twain

“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 loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”--Forrest Tucker

“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

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”--Groucho Marx

“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

More such splendid slights can be found here.