|
He was the greatest orator of his day, the greatest leader of the Second World War, the greatest statesman of his age, and the greatest Englishman on the 20th century, perhaps of all time. The debt owed to Sir Winston Churchill by the free world remains immeasurable.
This enchanting collection gathers hundreds of the funniest and wickedest quips in tribute to the exhilarating wit of this great-hearted, infuriatingly conceited, wildly funny, and brilliantly talented man.
Of Labour Party leader Clement Attlee - whom Churchill had once described as 'A sheep in sheep's clothing': 'He is a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about.'
Proposing a toast to the Soviet leader at the Yalta conference in 1945: 'To Premier Stalin, whose foreign policy manifests a desire for peace.' Then, in a whispered aside out of the interpreter's hearing: 'A piece of Poland, a piece of Czechoslovakia, a piece of Romania...'
Asked to comment in 1960 on a prediction that in 2000 women would rule the world: 'They still will, will they?'
On being urged by a British diplomat to flatter the Free French leader General de Gaule (whom he described as looking 'like a female llama who has just been surprised in her bath'): 'I'll kiss him on both cheeks - or if you prefer, on all four.'
|