B   C   F   G   H   J   K   M   P   R   S    T   V   W

History's Greatest Replies (C)

 Truman Capote

 Johnny Carson

 Winston Churchill

 Marc Connelly

 Calvin Coolidge

Truman Capote

Truman Capote was fond of regaling people with an anecdote about one of his finer moments. At the height of his popularity, he was drinking one evening with friends in a crowded Key West bar. Nearby sat a couple, both inebriated. The woman recognized Capote, walked over to his table, and gushingly asked him to autograph a paper napkin. The woman's husband, angry at his wife's display of interest in another man, staggered over to Capote's table and assumed an intimidating position directly in front of the diminutive writer. He then proceeded to unzip his trousers and, in Capote's own words, "hauled out his equipment." As he did this, he bellowed in a drunken slur, "Since you're autographing things, why don't you autograph this?" It was a tense moment, and a hush fell over the room. The silence was a blessing, for it allowed all those within earshot to hear Capote's soft, high-pitched voice deliver the perfect emasculating reply:

"I don't know if I can autograph it, but perhaps I can initial it."

Johnny Carson

During his three-decades as host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson delivered some of the funniest lines in the history of show business. While many of his best lines were undoubtedly written by his stable of talented comedy writers, one of Carson's funniest—and most famous—remarks was a spontaneous quip he made on a 1965 show. The guest that night was Ed Ames, formerly of the popular singing group "The Ames Brothers" and at the time appearing on the Daniel Boone television series in the role of Mingo, a Harvard-educated, tomahawk-throwing Indian. When Ames said he had taken tomahawk throwing lessons, Carson asked for a demonstration. Within seconds, a curtain opened, revealing the chalked outline of a standing human figure on a huge wooden log. As Ames hurled the tomahawk at the target, he said, "This is how you take care of an enemy." To everyone's shock, the blade of the tomahawk landed squarely in the crotch of the human figure, with the handle pointing up and out, looking almost like an erect penis. There was a moment of stunned silence, which was immediately followed by Carson's quip:

"Gee, Ed, I didn't even know you were Jewish. A frontier bris!"

A bris, of course, is the term for the Jewish circumcision ritual. After Carson's remark, the audience erupted into one of the longest laughs in television history. As the laughter died down, Ames said to Carson, "Would you like to give it a try?" Carson declined, and got one last laugh as he said, "I can't hurt him any more than you did."

Winston Churchill

Nancy Astor was an American socialite who married into an English branch of the wealthy Astor family (she holds the distinction of being the first woman to be seated in Parliament). At a 1912 dinner party in Blenheim Palace—the Churchill family estate—Lady Astor became annoyed at an inebriated Winston Churchill, who was pontificating on some topic. Unable to take any more, she finally blurted out, "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee." Without missing a beat, Churchill replied:

"Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."

Another famous Churchill reply also involves a London party and a female Member of Parliament, and once again a slightly inebriated Churchill. This time, it was Bessie Braddock, a socialist Member of Parliament from Liverpool, who finally had enough. She reproached Churchill by charging, "Winston, you're drunk!" The Grand Old Man may have had one too many drinks, but he still had his wits about him, replying:

"You're right, Bessie. And you're ugly. But tomorrow morning, I'll be sober. And you'll still be ugly."

Marc Connelly

When it comes to repartee, nobody did it better than the members of that legendary collection of wits known as The Algonquin Round Table. For many decades, a delightful story has been told about one member of the group, playwright Marc Connelly. One evening, Connelly was dining with friends when another member of the group snuck up from behind, placed his hands on top of Connelly's bald head, and said to the amusement of the other guests, "Marc, your head feels as smooth as my wife's ass." Without missing a beat, Connelly raised his hands to his head, began rubbing his own scalp, and with a wry smile, said:

"So it does, so it does."

Calvin Coolidge

In a profession noted for windbags, the 30th U. S. President Calvin Coolidge was a politician of very few words, well deserving the nickname, "Silent Cal" (he once said, "I've never been hurt by something I didn't say"). Coolidge's taciturn style frustrated the many people around him who felt a man of his stature should be more talkative. At a White House dinner one evening, a female guest sidled up to the President and whispered in his ear, "You must talk to me, Mr. President. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." Coolidge whispered back:

"You lose."