Insult Quotes - Page 22

• Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself.

  John Green

  Stupid, Real, Believe

  "John Green asks himself "Why is being a nerd bad?" in July 27: How Nerdfighters Drop Insults". www.youtube.com. July 27, 2007.

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• It seems to me,' said the other, 'That you are simply seeking a pretext to insult the Marquis.' By George!' said Syme facing round and looking at him, 'What a clever chap you are!

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Clever, Said, Chaps

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.223, Simon and Schuster

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• Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Aunt, Greatness

  Virginia Woolf, Andrew McNeillie (1986). “The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925-1928”, Chatto & Windus

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• If you had your life to live over again, do it overseas.

  Henny Youngman

  Funny, Life, Humor

  Henny Youngman (1994). “Henny Youngman's Bar Jokes, Bar Bets and Bar Tricks”, Outlet

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• People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults.

  Travis Tritt

  Redneck, People, Perfect

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• It's not fear of striking out that makes me reluctant to step up to the plate. It's the fear of getting hit in the head by a 90 mph fastball, the pitcher coming off of the mound to stomp me with her cleats while I am down, the rest of the opposing team rushing out of the dugout hurling insults as they kick me and spit on me, while all along the crowd in the stands is cheering them on and laughing at my failure. So, no, it's not the fear of striking out that keeps me from stepping up to the plate.

  Jim Copeland

  Cheer, Fear, Team

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• To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.

  Ruth Rendell

  Character, Cutting, Christie

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• The poet’s life is just so much crenellated waste, nights and days whipping swiftly or laboriously past the cinematic window. We’re hunched and weaving over the keys of our green our grey or pink blue manual typewriter maybe a darker stone cold thoritative selectric with its orgasmic expectant hum and us popping pills and laughing over what you or I just wrote, wondering if that line means insult or sex. Or both. Usually both.

  Eileen Myles

  Sex, Mean, Past

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• To say Congress is spending like drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors.

  Ronald Reagan

  Political, Politics, Sailor

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• Wisdom eventually comes to all of us. Someday it might even be your turn.

  Leigh Eddings

  Might, Someday, Turns

  David Eddings, Leigh Eddings (1997). “Polgara the Sorceress”, Del Rey

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• "Tell me, doctor, " said the patient, "when I stand on my head, the blood rushes to it. Why doesn't it rush to my feet now?" "That's because your feet aren't empty," said the doctor.

  Sam Ewing

  Doctors, Blood, Feet

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• A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Flower, Humor

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• The pedestal is immobilizing and subtly insulting whether or not some women yet realize it. We must move up from the pedestal.

  Wilma Scott Heide

  Moving, Insulting, Pedestal

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• It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking.

  Epictetus

  Views, Giving, Insulting

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• REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Strong, War, Gentleman

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.197, University of Georgia Press

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• The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

  H. L. Mencken

  Book, Reading, Animal

  Notebooks (1956) "Minority Report"

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• It seems an insult to nature and to the Creator to imagine that pregnancy was ever intended to be a sickness.

  Eliza Bisbee Duffey

  Pregnancy, Sickness, Imagine

  Eliza Bisbee Duffey (1873). “What Women Should Know: A Woman's Book about Women, Containing Practical Information for Wives and Mothers”, p.165

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• I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian-style of campaigning and it's meant as an insult. One columnist said it consists mainly of throwing mud until it sticks. One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.

  Karl Rove

  Race, Style, Elements

  "Karl Rove Calls Out Stupid Journalists Who Believed the Worst About Him". www.newsbusters.org. March 8, 2010.

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• They always use the word 'insult' with me, but I don't hurt anybody. I wouldn't be sitting here if I did. I make fun of everybody and exaggerate all our insecurities.

  Don Rickles

  Hurt, Fun, Insecurity

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• To quarrel with God is to pay God the supreme compliment: it is to take God seriously. It is to say that God matters enough to be worth some anger. To be indifferent to God is to pay God the supreme insult. It is to say that nothing of consequence is at stake.

  Robert McAfee Brown

  Thought Provoking, Matter, Pay

  Robert McAfee Brown (1983). “Elie Wiesel, messenger to all humanity”

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• I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer's as an insult, and I decided to do my best to marshal any kind of forces that I could against this wretched disease. I have posterior cortical atrophy or PCA. They say, rather ingenuously, that if you have Alzheimer's it's the best form of Alzheimer's to have.

  Terry Pratchett

  Alzheimer's, Disease, Kind

  "'A butt of my own jokes': Terry Pratchett on the disease that finally claimed him". www.theguardian.com. March 14, 2015.

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• It would be rare to find a woman who hadn't endured some kind of ridicule for stepping out of line. When the market dictates that a woman's value is primarily attached to her looks and deferential behaviour, it's the threat of sexually degrading insults that help to keep her in check.

  Clementine Ford

  Women, Would Be, Looks

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• Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Sex, Dirt, Comeback

  Phoenix "Pornography and Obscenity" ch. 3 (1936)

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• Let others know when they have hurt or angered you. By not speaking up when someone insults or mistreats you, you are inadvertently giving permission for him or her to continue to treat you in the same way in the future.

  Beverly Engel

  Being Yourself, Hurt, Speaking Up

  Beverly Engel (2011). “AARP The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused--and Start Standing Up for Yourself”, p.4, John Wiley & Sons

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• When an evil-doer, seeing you practise goodness, comes and maliciously insults you, you should patiently endure it and not feel angry with him, for the evil-doer is insulting himself by trying to insult you.

  Gautama Buddha

  Insults You, Evil, Meditation

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