“Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig”

Another apparently authentic British military Officer Fitness Reports quoted by Steve Madely in Ottawa Sun February 10, 1999

“cast into the furnace of contempt.”

Robert B. Heilman “Freedom from Speech” in Jack E. Conner & Marcelline Krafchick, eds., Speaking of Rhetoric

“Are you attacking my reputation?” “No, I’m just commenting on how low it is.”

An exchange I had the privilege of witnessing between two of my co-workers some years back.

“One good thing about silence is that it can’t be repeated.”

Variously attributed online including anonymously.

“Invited to choose between two bad poets, Dr. Johnson said he declined to adjudicate the precedence between a louse and a flea.”

Mark Steyn in National Post June 28, 2001

“I would not breed from this officer”

One of several apparently authentic British military Officer Fitness Reports quoted by Steve Madely in Ottawa Sun February 10, 1999

“He was rude and unhygienic.”

“The robot head in Lexx: The Dark Zone Stories Jan. 1, 1999” [It’s the source I recorded and I’m sticking to it although I can offer no justification for ever having watched an episode (or even knowing the show existed, which in fact I’d forgotten) except that as summaries of someone’s undesirability go this line is excellent. Google confirms that the show existed and lasted four seasons (!) and says the robot head’s name was 790 and who am I to argue?]

“a maddening knowledge that among fools in the land of Egypt I might claim high rank…”

Narrator Shan Greville in Sax Rohmer The Mask of Fu Manchu