Best Retort Quotes & Sayings

One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno! — E. M. Forster

Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There are a lot of complaints by the older generation about the lack of action in this generation. My retort: give these people something to be engaged in. Cutting a check is not engaging. — Ben Rattray

I think that Lethal Weapon-style dialogue is overused, it's a necessary aspect of high action films where you have to have the smart retort. You have to say "I'll be back baby" and stuff. It's not my style. — George Lucas

About two hours afterwards Gethryn discovered a suitable retort, but, coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to repartees, refrained from speaking it. — P.G. Wodehouse

Even the financial disclosure statements that political bloggers were required to post hadn't stemmed the suspicion that people's opinions weren't really their own. "Who's paying you?" was a retort that might follow any bout of enthusiasm, along with laughter - who would let themselves be bought? — Jennifer Egan

I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of their nine hundred years," wrote Martin Luther. "Eve would say, 'You ate the apple,' and Adam would retort, 'You gave it to me. — Philip Yancey

The second mouse gets the cheese! — Terry Pratchett

Please. The word was disgusting as it came out, rank with misuse, and he felt irritation in the midst of his panic. But it was the panic that drove this train, panic that pushed every retort out of his mind and left him broken and desperate, in front of this man. — Alessandra Torre

Well, remember what you said, because in a day or two, I'll have a witty and blistering retort! You'll be devastated THEN — Bill Watterson

You can't do a blocking spell, and you've never heard of L'Occhio di Dio? Man, what kind of witch are you?
I had an incredibly nasty retort ready that involved his mother and the U.S. Navy, but before I could get it out ... — Rachel Hawkins

A "London Mechanic's Wife" made a point that historians should take to heart: Shall the idiot-like, the stupid and usurious capitalists, tell us to look to our domestic affairs, and say, "these we understand best," we will retort on them, and tell them that thousands of us have scarce any domestic affairs to look after, when the want of employment on the one hand, or ill-requited toil on the other, have left our habitations almost destitute... — Hal Draper

A recent example of the racial reconciliation paradigm at work is the #AllLivesMatter retort. In an interview in The New York Times, philosopher Judith Butler unpacked the problem: If we jump too quickly to the universal formulation, "all lives matter," then we miss the fact that black people have not yet been included in the idea of "all lives." That said, it is true that all lives matter (we can then debate about when life begins or ends). But to make that universal formulation concrete, to make that into a living formulation, one that truly extends to all people, we have to foreground those lives that are not mattering now, to mark that exclusion, and militate against it.113 — Robert P. Jones

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

She's fifteen!"
Nash shrugged. "That's just a number. It doesn't say anything about her."
"It says something pretty damn funny about your IQ!" I said, and he opened his mouth to retort, but I spoke over him. "Fifteen is too young to drive, too young to get a legal job, too young to sign a lease, and obviously too young to pick a boyfriend with half a brain. — Rachel Vincent

O thrice-romantic Master, would you not rather take long walks in a blooming cherry tree alley with your friend and listen to Schubert in the evenings? Would you not rather write by candlelight with a quill pen? Like Faust, would you not rather sit over a retort in the hopes of crafting a new homunculus? That is your desination, there. A house awaits you, with an aging servant; the candles are already lit and will soon extinguish as dawn inevitably arrives. Take this path, Master, and farewell! I must go. — Mikhail Bulgakov

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 Jyumonji

She went a little fucking overboard on her anger." He looks at me. "Her daughters are all a bit nuts, so you know exactly where they get it from."
"She called the fucking cops on me," I retort. "That's not nuts that's
"
"It's nuts," he rebuts.
"It's fucked up."
"That too," he says. — Krista Ritchie

Wait." Isabelle suddenly sat up straight. "What did you say that name was?" she demanded, turning to Jace. "The name in Clary's head."
"I didn't," said Jace. "At least, I didn't finish it. It's Magnus Bane." He grinned at Alec mockingly. "Rhymes with 'overcareful pain in the ass.'"
Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole." Clary smiled inwardly. — Cassandra Clare

Burn wounds always elicited pain more terrible than anything else he had ever endured. He didn't relish the idea of forcing himself to suffer through such agony. But it was necessary. Earth depended on them taking possession of the key. "It's the only way out," Andrew reminded him.
"I understand that, but - "
"The trials we have faced thus far have been minimal," Andrew said, cutting off Sebastian's retort. "What we seek is the key to the universe. You didn't expect it to be easy, did you? — Laura Kreitzer

Cocky little king. You assume you're the only one that gives me satisfaction?"
His smile widens as he lifts one of my arms and kisses the sensitive skin of my wrist. "If there is something in this world that can please you more than me," he says, his warm breath caressing my skin, "then I'll be extra diligent in my duties tonight, my queen. Indulge me with every sensation that gives you pleasure, and I will match it and more."
Whatever retort was on my tongue vanishes, his heated words stealing all reason from my mind. Only one lingers: queen. Hearing him refer to me as his intended opens my heart like the sea opens to the sky, and I am his. — Trisha Wolfe

Too bad Guy interrupted," I said as we snuck around the rear of the building. "Otherwise, I could have just walked you down here before you changed back."
His look said he wasn't dignifying that with a retort.
"I always wanted a dog," I said, nearly running to keep up with his long strides. "My brothers were both allergic. Have I told you that?"
"Once or twice."
"Maybe, someday, you could humor me and
"Don't finish that sentence. — Kelley Armstrong

Someone who accepts that in the world as currently divided war can become inevitable, and even just, might reply that the photographs supply no evidence, none at all, for renouncing war - except to those form whom the notions of valor and sacrifice have been emptied of meaning and credibility. The destructiveness of war - short of total destruction, which is not war but suicide - is not in itself an argument against waging war unless one thinks (as few people actually do think) that violence is always unjustifiable, that force is always and in all circumstances wrong - wrong because, as Simone Weil affirms in her sublime essay on war, "The Iliad, or The Poem of Force" (1940), violence turns anybody subjected to it into a thing. No, retort those who in a given situation see no alternative to armed struggle, violence can exalt someone subjected to it into a martyr or hero. — Susan Sontag

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

You are a philosopher, Thrasymachus, I replied, and well know that if you ask a person what numbers make up twelve, taking care to prohibit him whom you ask from answering twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three, 'for this sort of nonsense will not do for me,' - then obviously, if that is your way of putting the question, no one can answer you. But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one? - is that your meaning?' - How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be? I replied; and even if they are not, but only appear to be so to the person who is asked, ought he not to say what he thinks, whether you and I forbid him or not? — Plato

With all the insolence she swallowed, it was a wonder her corsets still laced. Retort after rejoinder after sharp-edged remark: Why do you address me? What can I possibly have to say to a man who would split a pair of fives? Be quiet. Go to sleep. Go away. Come back when you have another erection. — Cecilia Grant

A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?' — Roger Scruton

It desolates me to disappoint you, but your brother is not here. Despite two really praiseworthy attempts at rescue."
... The hint of amusement irritated me, and sick and hurt as I was, I simply had to retort something. "Glad ... at least ... you're desolated. — Sherwood Smith

What's he want to howl like that for when I'm playing?" George would exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot. "What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?" Harris would retort, catching the boot. "You let him alone. He can't help howling. He's got a musical ear, and your playing makes him howl. — Jerome K. Jerome

Listen to me. When a man wakes, he wakes wanting. He wakes hard and rude and aching with need." He shifted, pressing his massive erection against her hip. "Do you feel that?"
She gasped. "Yes."
"It wants in you," he said.
"In ... in me."
"Yes. In you. Hard, deep, fast, and completely. Now don't wake me at this hour again unless you've found the perfect retort to that. — Tessa Dare

Huh! It is only a pahari," said Kim over his shoulder. "Since when have the hill-asses owned all Hindustan?"
The retort was a swift and brilliant sketch of Kim's pedigree for three generations. — Rudyard Kipling

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

Ryan was not only gregarious but also a happily married inamorato! (Around the facility, when the other coaches teased him about this episode, Ryan would retort affably, "I'm the only guy in history who gets in a sex scandal with his wife!") — Nicholas Dawidoff