by Sebastian Ramshackle III

Created on: February 16, 2007   Last Updated: May 23, 2012

Once upon a time many years ago early in the twentieth century, at a party somewhere in England , Lady Nancy Astor bumped into Winston Churchill with whom she had an ascerbic relationship and said to him, 'Winston, if I were your wife, I'd put poison in your coffee'. Without drawing breath, Churchill replied, 'Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.'

That famous exchange exemplifies the moment when an unpleasant person throws an insult and the intended target comes back with something wittier, a response that completely turns the tables and makes the insulter look a bit of a fool.

Do you wish you could come up with that withering comment that will put the insulter firmly back in their place? Its not impossible. Here are a selection of some of the more thoughtful insults thrown over the years, some with comebacks, and also some without.

Churchill and Lady Astor had a famously barbed relationship and on another occasion she said to him, 'Winston, you're drunk'. Churchill obviously wasn't quite that drunk because he managed to come up with the cutting reply, 'Madam, you're ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober.'

Britain's greatest war-time Prime Minister made a habit of getting on the wrong side of women and then insulting them more than they had he in his reples. One is reported to have said to him, 'There are two things I don't like about you, Mr Churchill - your politics and your moustache. Churchill responded with, 'My dear madam, pray do not disturb yourself. You are not likely to come into contact with either.'

While on the topic of politicians, here's a comment from 1860 (by Simon Cameron, a US politician): 'an honest politician is one who, when he is bought, stays bought'.

And another on Americans, 'The American male doesn't mature until he's exhausted all other possibilities.'

From George Burns, 'Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair' (And, he might have added, writing for Helium!)

On Hollywood from Fred Allen, 'Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.'

On John Major (British PM lest you forgot!) by a critic, 'He makes George Bush seem like a personality' and 'the only man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant'...strange but true!

On Louis B Mayer (producer of films): 'The only reason so many people showed up at his funeral was because they wanted to make sure he was dead.'

Albert Schweitzer - 'Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.'

Appropriate words from Abba Eban, an Israeli politician, in 1970: 'History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.'

An anonymous comment....'If white bread could sing, it would sound like Olivia Newton-John.'

The Falklands War was like 'a fight between two bald men over a comb' wrote Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian writer.

And, finally, the famous report sent to the person submitting a script to a publisher or said to a thousand undergraduate students over the years...'You have written something which is both original and good. Unfortunately, the bit that is original is not good and the bit that is good is not original!'

Learn more about this author, Sebastian Ramshackle III.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.