Great literary taunts

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
— Stephen Bishop

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

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
— William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
— Samuel Johnson

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

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
— Thomas Brackett Reed

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
— Mae West

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
— Billy Wilder