bluebird of bitterness

Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters. ―John Major

If your brains were dynamite there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off. ―Kurt Vonnegut

I thought the play was frightful, but I saw it under particularly unfortunate circumstances. The curtain was up. –George S. Kaufman

If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, he would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayers’ expense. —H. L. Mencken, about Harry Truman

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 can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. –Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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

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

It had been said of Crispin Scrope with considerable justice that if men were dominoes, he would be the double blank. — P. G. Wodehouse

I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial. —Irvin S. Cobb

There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure. —Jack E. Leonard

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

A modest little person, with much to be modest about. —Winston Churchill, about Clement Atlee

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

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. —Oscar Wilde

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts — for support rather than illumination. —Andrew Lang

He had delusions of adequacy. —Walter Kerr

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

When the Okies left Oklahoma and moved to California, it raised the I.Q. of both states. —Will Rogers

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. —H. L. Mencken, about Warren Harding

He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more. ―P. G. Wodehouse

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