Twitter Epigrams and Repartee - O'Reilly Radar. I recently encountered the following zinger on twitter: @jayrosen_nyu: Scoble is like a guest at a hotel for one, where a huge staff is trying to anticipate his every need. And he’s angry. Shades of noted wits from the past! As when Dorothy Parker, asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence, said “You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think” or when Nancy Astor said to Winston Churchill, “Winston, if I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee,” and he replied, “Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it,” or less meanly, Oscar Wilde on his deathbed: “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.”
(My all time favorite, from the collection Viva la repartee, tells how the Earl of Sandwich braced reformist politician John Wilkes with the insult, “Upon my soul, Wilkes, I don’t know whether you’ll die upon the gallows, or of the pox,” to which Wilkes cuttingly replied, “That will depend, my lord, on whether I embrace your principles, or your mistress.” P.S. Jogli. Jogli. Eye witness beirut.