“A classic vacuous nemesis of the Fifties was the young, progressive Dean of women who was brought in to replace the septuagenarian, traditional dean of women… who had all the give-and-take of Torquemada…”

Florence King in National Review July 12, 1999

“Since life’s a series of disasters, you’d better choose disasters worth having, ones you’ll enjoy & learn from.”

Richard J. Needham according to an email from a friend and colleague May 25, 2001 (I wasn’t able to verify it independently but if Needham didn’t say it he missed a splendid opportunity, to crib from J.M. Barrie’s comment on the theory that Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare)

“He did not lack just the last six inches of steel: he lacked the first.”

The Economist August 24, 1991 (alas, my notes here are incomplete; it was to do with British politician Robert Boothby, but I cannot tell whether it was said by or of him).

“When you’re directionless, you only go one way.”

OK, it's me again, from December 20, 2015. (When I went to enter the source I had forgotten it was me, if it makes quoting myself any less vain.)

“he immatures with age”.

Harold Wilson (of Tony Benn) quoted in The Economist July 11, 1992

“He’s so morally bankrupt they repossessed his conscience.”

Another of my would-be witticisms, from November 1, 1991

“A grandfather and grandson who intended to fly to Australia instead found themselves in Nova Scotia... The elder Mr. [Joannes ] Rutten, who speaks German, Dutch and some English, said they didn’t know there was another Sydney.”

National Post August 11, 2009 (OK, it’s not exactly a zinger... until you add “Or such things as maps.”)

“He has the strangeness of ten.”

Quoting myself again - I don’t recall when this insult first occurred to me, but it has done so frequently since.