Retort Quotes

“A lady came up to me one day and said 'Sir! You are drunk', to which I replied 'I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.”
― Winston Churchill

“I often warn people: "Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is, 'Maybe not. But there is an "I" in independence, individuality and integrity.”
― George Carlin

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?'
Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?”
― Frank Zappa

“I don't know how you persist in being so stubborn-"
"It's a superpower. I was bitten by a radioactive mule.”
― Shannon Hale, The Actor and the Housewife

“A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.'

That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."
— George Bernard Shaw, playwright (to Winston Churchill)
"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
— Churchill's response”
― Winston S. Churchill

“I'm not sure you're quite sensible of the honor I'm doing you," Jace said. "you'll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute."

"Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.”
― Winston S. Churchill

“Are you trying to get run over by a cab?"

"Don't be ridiculous. We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“What's your angle?" I asked, trying to sound more playful than demanding.
"Isosceles," Jack quipped.”
― Amanda Hocking, My Blood Approves

“I don't like you with Becky. She's not a very nice girl.'
'I don't like you with Jake. He's not me.”
― Courtney Summers, Cracked Up to Be

“I can understand bitchiness in any language.”
― Richelle Mead, Gameboard of the Gods

“The second mouse gets the cheese!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“It is never ridicule, but a compliment, that knocks a philosopher off his feet. He is already positioned for every possible counter-attack, counter-argument, and retort...only to find a big bear hug coming his way.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Caro: "Bite me."
Ruby: "I gave that up in kindergarten.”
― Kristin Hannah, Summer Island

“(About a cookbook...)
- What about this one? Maids of Honor?
- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.”
― Terry Pratchett, Maskerade

“[Jean Harlow] 'Say - aren't you Margot Asquith?' (pronouncing the hard 't')
[Margot Asquith] 'Yes Dear, But the 't' is silent, as in Harlow.”
― Margot Asquith

“You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“I do not understand this man," [Tempi] said. "Is he attempting to buy sex with me? Or does he wish to fight?”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

“You speak in ignorant disdain of the foremost nation of the world," Yongxing said, growing angry himself, "like all your country-men, who show no respect for that which is superior, and insult our customs."
"For which I might consider myself as owing you some apology, sir, if you yourself had not so often insulted myself and my own country, or shown respect for any customs other than your own," Laurence said.”
― Naomi Novik, Throne of Jade

“Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at last, 'He, Sir, that is the least like you'.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“You want me to invite him to dinner.”
“I want you to invite him to dinner,” she agreed.
“You know,” he said, “most gay men don’t have mothers who are this enthusiastic about their love lives.”
“That’s probably true,” she said. “You’re one of the lucky ones.”
― Matthew Haldeman-Time, Off the Record

“Ranta: Let's just pray that she actually is a tsundere... Though, if she were a tsundere, obviously, the one she'd go dere for is me, you know? That's kind of... not so bad, I guess?

Moguzo: O-Obviously, she wouldn't go dere for Ranta, I think...

Ranta: Oh, shut up, Moguzo!”
― Ao Jūmonji, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: Volume 1

“I said, 'Don't talk rot, Old Tom Travers."
"I am not accustomed to talk rot," he said.
"Then, for a beginner," I said, "you do it dashed well.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

“I don't care whose son he is. I won't go belly-up like a timid pup. If he's fool enough to take a poke at me, I'll snap the finger clean off that does the poking.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“What--has O-Tar seen an ulsio and fainted?" demanded I-Gos with broad sarcasm.

"Men have died for less than that, ancient one," E-Thas reminded him.

"I am safe," retorted I-Gos, "for I am not a brave and popular son of the jeddak of Manator.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Chessmen of Mars

“When, therefore, a man is told, “You (your inner being) are so and so, because your skull-bone is so constituted,” this means nothing else than that we regard a bone as the man's reality. To retort upon such a statement with a box on the ear — in the way mentioned above when dealing with psysiognomy — removes primarily the “soft” parts of his head from their apparent dignity and position, and proves merely that these are no true inherent nature, are not the reality of mind; the retort here would, properly speaking, have to go the length of breaking the skull of the person who makes a statement like that, in order to demonstrate to him in a manner as palpable as his own wisdom that a bone is nothing of an inherent nature at all for a man, still less his true reality.”
― Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, Vol 1