“Bottle rocket scientist.”
This (after a withering “Are you talking to me?” expression) works wonders.
I enjoy giving the evil “fake laugh.”
I find it effective to always agree enthusiastically, with a big smile on your face, and even take it a step further, e.g.:
Insulter: “Hey, you’re stupid!”
Insultee: “Oh, yes, absolutely! I’m a real idiot! A moron! I’m just so dumb!” (And just continue like this until they walk away.)
“Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
It takes one to know one.
“Whatever”
A young man was once rude to me in a club.
It was about 1am, and, to be fair, perhaps I wasn’t looking at my best at that point, but there was no need for him to say, “Look at the state of that.”
I stopped and looked back at him from head to toe and then laughed in his face.
Just as I walked off his friends were shoving and mocking him like Nelson.
I’ve worked with a guy for a couple decades, we have a running joke when we can’t come up with a clever response fast enough.
“Yeah, well f**k you.” but that’s all in fun.
There’s also the tried and true…
“I am rubber you are glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.”
I can’t remember the last time anyone lobbed an actual insult in my direction, I’d like to think I would just walk away. I can always hear my dad saying, “you’re better than that”.
Skip step one. If you have to use derogatory stereotypes to make yourself feel better- you’ve already lost.
I always rank my insults from one to Don Rickles, as there never was, and never will be, a better insult thrower than Don.
Maybe.
Some worthy competitors (needs more Dorothy Parker, and other wimmens, but hey it’s a start):
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.”
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill.
“Cannot possibly attend first night, I will attend the second…If there is one.”
- Winston Churchill, in response.
A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows, or of some unspeakable disease.”
“That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”
“He had delusions of adequacy.” >- Walter Kerr
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
- Clarence Darrow
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
- Moses Hadas
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
- Mark Twain
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends…”
- Oscar Wilde
“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.”
- Stephen Bishop
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
- John Bright
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
- Irvin S. Cobb
“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
- Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
- Paul Keating
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
- Charles, Count Talleyrand
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
- Forrest Tucker
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
- Mark Twain
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
- Mae West
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
- Oscar Wilde
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… For support rather than illumination.”
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
- Billy Wilder
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
- Groucho Marx
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
- Winston Churchill
Over here, another good one would be, “Oh, honey - I’m all 50 states and 10 provinces!”
@NashRambler I think @anon15383236’s nailed it. Don’s got nothing on Oscar Wilde or Mae West.
My favorite is “I guess everything everybody says behind your back is true,” then drop some dirty laundry you already know about them that they think NOBODY does. It totally f___s up their reality and they question every relationship they have
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
Okay, that’s not a response to an insult; that’s the actual insult. (I think. Still trying to work that out…)
“I don’t want to talk about you behind your back, but I’m not sure which is the front.”