tomorrow I shall be sober and you will
still be ugly.”
Riley says a line similar to the above
was actually copied from a W. C. Fields
movie (which likely lifted it from a
dig made by a House of Commons
member). Nevertheless, it took quick
thinking to pull it out at the right mo-
ment. “It was an off-the-cuff recall of
something he had synthesized, com-
posed earlier, and that he was waiting
to perform,” Riley says.When Yankees baseball
great Babe Ruth signed
a contract in 1930 for
$80,000, he was asked
whether he thought he
deserved to be making
more money than
President Herbert Hoover.
“Why not?” he replied.
“I had a better year than
he did.”
Abraham Lincoln, after
being called two-faced
about slavery by debate
opponent Stephen
Douglas: “If I had another
face, do you think I would
wear this one?”
Reporter: “How many
people work at the
Vatican?”
Pope John XXIII: “About
half.”
Writer Lewis Morris
complaining that his new
book of poems hadn’t
been reviewed by
the press: “There’s a
conspiracy of silence.”
Oscar Wilde: “My dear
Morris, join it yourself.”In 1954, poet Edith
Sitwell was given the
title Dame Commander
of the Order of the British
Empire. On a visit to the
United States, an Ameri-
can asked, “Why do you
call yourself ‘Dame’?” “I
don’t,” Sitwell responded.
“The queen does.”After a bout of drinking,
humorist Robert
Benchley found himself
face-to-face with a
uniformed man. Benchley
asked the man to call
him a cab. The man in-
formed Benchley he was
an admiral in the U.S.
Navy. “Get me a battle-
ship, then,” Benchley
replied.A young, unknown
musician complained
bitterly to composer
Johannes Brahms about
delays in the publication
of his first opus. Brahms
counseled him to be
patient. “You can afford
not to be immortal for
a few more weeks,”
Brahms told him.In 1845, President James
K. Polk named James
Buchanan secretary of
state. Former president
Andrew Jackson
protested. “But you
yourself appointed him
minister to Russia for
your first term,” said Polk
defensively. “Yes, I did,”
said Jackson. “It was as far
as I could send him out
of my sight and where he
could do the least harm.
I would have sent him to
the North Pole if we had
kept a minister there.”sources: whitehousehistory.org; cnn; the national catholic reporter; the new york times;
bartlett’s book of anecdotes; the little, brown book of anecdotes
122 may 2019
Reader’s Digest
CHECK OUT THESE LEGENDARY COMEBACKS