The exchange between Churchill and Lady Astor: She said, “If you were my husband, I’d give you poison,” and he replied, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.” (and on another occasion, she said, “Sir Winston, you are drunk,” and he responded, “Ah yes, Madam, but you are ugly, and tomorrow when I arise I will no longer be drunk.”)
Walter Kerr, about Winston Churchill, “He had delusions of adequacy,” to which Churchill responded, “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” A member of Parliament to Benjamin Disraeli, “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease,” to which Disraeli quipped, “That depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
William Faulkner about Ernest Hemingway: “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to a dictionary,” and the response, “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
George Bernard Shaw to Churchill, “I’m enclosing two tickets for the opening night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.” Churchill’s retort: “I can’t possibly attend the first night, but I will come the second, if there is one.”
Clarence Darrow: “I have never killed a man but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
Abraham Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
Stephen Bishop: “I felt so miserable without you it’s almost like having you here.”
John Bright: “He is a self-made man who worships his creator.”
Samuel Johnson: “He is not only dull himself; he brings it out in others.”
Paul Keating: “He’s simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
Jack E. Leonard: “There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
Robert Redford: “He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
Mark Twain: “Why do you all sit there like an envelope without an 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.”
Groucho Marx: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
There is sometimes a fine line between teasing and hurting, insulting and kidding. One can only imagine the trash talk that went on between the United States and England in 1776.
Today, the two nations are friends. If only it worked out that way among all nations. As we celebrate another anniversary of our birth as a nation, may we take great care in how we treat one another, what we say to and about each other, and the respect that knows when to temper argument with understanding, absolutism with compromise.
And may we never be so foolish as to think that Jesus is just teasing when we stumble across a line or two of His that we simply find hard to accept.
Happy Fourth!
