Quotes About Bons mots

What struck me more than anything was the malice that ran through the review, the sense that she had enjoyed thinking up her little bons mots and spitting them in my direction. That joke about the stool, for example. Did she really have to do that?

All living languages are promiscuous. We promiscuous speakers shamelessly shoplift words, plucking bons mots and phrases from any tempting language. We wear these words when we wish to be more formal, more elegant, more mysterious, worldly, precise, vague.