Quotes About Retort

Diderot was so flustered by the affront that he only thought of a clever retort as he was walking down the stairs on his way out. The encounter led him to devise the term "l'esprit d'escalier," "the wit of the staircase," for the experience of thinking of a witty comeback only after it is too late to deliver it.

No," said Harriet, who had been exercising

The willing sacrifice of the innocents is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has yet to be conceived by God or man.

"Mr. Churchill you're drunk!" Mr. Churchill: "And you, Lady Astor, are ugly. As for my condition, it will pass by the morning. You, however, will still be ugly.

What's the matter?" said the foul old man. "Birdie got your tongue?

I look at you and feel so old, Will. It's been a hundred years of misery, all this. I feel ancient." Goodrich sought to brighten him, falling back on their old pattern of challenge and retort as naturally as if it were two years before. "You are ancient, Mark. The suffering Jew." He laughed, chiding his old roommate. "Duty-bound to suffer over wrongs. Perceived or otherwise.

You want a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?" Sully offered. "You don't have a stick," Will pointed out.

William: You'd look better with your hair chopped off. Reggie: You'd look better with your face chopped off.

Too bad Guy interrupted, I said as we snuck around the rear of the building. Otherwise, I could have just walked you down here before you changed back. His look said he wasn't dignifying that with a retort. I always wanted a dog, I said, nearly running to keep up with his long strides. My brothers were both allergic. Have I told you that? Once or twice. Maybe, someday, you could humor me and— Don't finish that sentence.

Lady Astor: Sir, if you were my husband I would put arsenic in your tea! Churchill: If I were your husband I would drink it!

Screw you," I told him in a low voice. "Are you offering?" "From what I've heard, there isn't much to screw," I shot back.

The grown-ups snapped the chillies (each made a sound terse as a satirical retort), and scattered the tiny, deadly seeds in their food.

You're pretty quick for an old guy," he said. "That's how I got to be an old guy," McGrath said back.

Dick was about to retort by commenting on the extraordinary suits worn by Tommy and Prince Chillicheff, suits of a cut and pattern fantastic enough to have sauntered down Beale Street on a Sunday—when

REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend.

Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself.

She told me the French expression [Esprit de l'escalier]—the spirit of the staircase—for the voice that catches up with you, minutes after the fact, to make fun of whatever you said and come up with the perfect answer you didn't think of. We even had our own code phrase: SOS, we called it.

After a heated argument on some trivial matter Nancy Astor . shouted, If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee Whereupon Winston Churchill answered, And if I were your husband I would drink it.

Only if you're a numbskull." "Numbskull yourself! Want me to numb your skull with this shovel?

Who's stupid now, Jimbo?!

My dear Rikki," Karellen retorted, "it's only by not taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!" Despite himself, Stormgren smiled.

Where are you off to in such a hurry?" His stunning green eyes bore through me. "A corpse convention?" Even sweaty, Trevor was gorgeous. "What are you running away from?" I retorted. "Your mirror?

What if I were to have you hanged?" In a clever retort, alluding to both his considerable girth and to his network of influential friends abroad, the agronomist replied, "Your Excellency, the weight of my body would break the gallows with a noise loud enough to be heard in America." Djemal apparently liked that answer. Before the ending of their meeting, he had appointed Aaronsohn inspector in chief of a new locust eradication program

In a clever retort, alluding to both his considerable girth and to his network of influential friends abroad, the agronomist replied, "Your Excellency, the weight of my body would break the gallows with a noise loud enough to be heard in America.