Author Archives: Select Board member Osler "Pete" Peterson

When Insults Had Class AND A SENSE OF HUMOR.

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
— Winston Churchill
“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”
— 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)
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
— Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
— Moses Hadas
“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
— Groucho Marx
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
— Mark Twain
“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
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
— Irvin S. Cobb
“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
“He had delusions of adequacy.”
— Walter Kerr
“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
— Jack E. Leonard
“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
— Robert Redford
“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)
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
— Charles, Count Talleyrand
“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
“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
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts…for support rather than illumination.”
— Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
— Billy Wilder