From an Irish friend: “You’re just a normal person with an American accent”.
one of the best - when my cousin’s 4 yr old daughter, when finding out I have no sisters, told me I could be hers.
one of the weirdest - when an ex b/f told me that I have the cleanest ears he has ever seen. as you can tell, I go for them romantic types
My high school guidance councellor called me eccentric. I thought it was a bad thing. But the more I get called it, the more I think it’s cool.
This was a good one: my heart skipped a beat (or two)
“David, You are beautiful, inside and out.”
Wow
LouisB, I think there is a book about you and Marcie waiting to be written by you.
Your love for Marcie that keeps peeping out here and there in your posts is very touching.
External compliment - I had a friend tell me that I look like an Indian film star - she didn’t tell me which one. Must be the shape of the face- I am very Irish, pale skin, blue eyes.
Work compliment - Second hand, from my boss, who was relaying what someone else had said. I had taken over work from someone who left, and I was learning new software. I felt like the slowest person in the world - but she had spoken to the DBA I was working with, and he had said I was picking it up very quickly. Made me feel not quite so slow.
Susan
Best compliment: Two come to mind. One was from a professor I really respected, who wrote on about of my papers, “Tis a consummation in a student paper devoutly to be wished!” Also, Harlan Ellison once said I was sedulous.
Backhanded: a couple of young African American kids once said behind me, “Yo, she got a fat ass!” I turned around and they said, “P-H-A-T! I swear, I meant it as PHAT!”
I’ve had compliments from professors, but nothing tops this one…
An ex, who I had been on-again-off-again with for about six years, finally blew it for the last time - he had been using me and developing an alcohol problem at the same time. And when I wouldn’t take him back, he understood why - and said this:
“You were the most underappreciated escape from reality I ever had.”
I would’ve taken him back just for saying that if he hadn’t been right 
I would rather forget the backhanded compliments…
irishfella says some wonderful things.
the best is definitely “i’m in awe of you”.
the best backhander…from my mate, after i had just summed up his whole spiel in 3 words, " it must be fun to think that fast. like having a brain full of crib notes."
Shodan’s “compliment story” nearly made me cry!! How sweet.
I was the consummate tomboy as a girl, and one of the best compliments I received was being picked 3rd or 4th overall in neighborhood baseball and basketball games. Sometimes I got picked before my brother!
Another favorite was when a major sports nut friend of mine said to another pal, “HelloKitty knows what she’s talking about when it comes to sports”. It was cool to have my sports knowledge validated by a fellow sports nut.
A work compliment I recall was when one of my office mates blurted out, “HelloKitty, you’ve got spunk!”
When I was in grad school I assisted teaching some courses with the professors. I really jumped into it and took on extra responsibilites. Toward the end of my experience one of the profs remarked to me, almost offhandedly, “You know, you’ve really contributed.”
That was huge to me.
Backhanded: My advisor–perhaps you know him; his name is Professor Tact–likes to bring up what a good teacher I am. Thing is, ya see, I’ve never TAed for him. Only done research. About which he usually has little to say. sigh
Best compliment in recent memory:
One of my colleagues is just a really smart guy. Okay, all my colleagues are really smart guys (and gals) but you know how even in a group of incredibly smart people, there’s often one who stands head and shoulders above? In addition to being just brilliant, he’s also a really nice fellow, and I just love him to pieces, and place a great deal of value in his opinion.
I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t heard back from one of the schools where I’d done a job interview, and said that I suspected that they’d made an offer to someone else and wait-listed me. He said, “Oh, no, I’m sure they didn’t do that.”
I took his meaning to be that if they’d wait-listed me, they’d probably at least have called to let me know what was going on, so I just shrugged, and said, “Maybe not.”
However, another person who was there asked him, “Why do you say that?”
He said, as though it was completely obvious, “Well, because they want Podkayne!” Just like that was it, end of story. No other possibilities exist.
I wish I could have gotten him to write a letter of recommendation. 
Backhanded compliment? “I still think you’re the best man for the job, even though you’re a woman.”
Strangest compliment was an old friend of mine used to walk up behind me and stroke and smell my hair (I have very long hair, so fragrances tend to linger.) He never said a word about it, but I always assumed it as a compliment.
Best compliment was from my best friend upon her marriage breaking up. She said, “you have always been there for me, no matter what happend.” I was in tears.
My favorite compliment I’ve ever gotten was six or seven years ago at a gaming convention, where some guy I’d met told me his friend had referred to me as an “awesome geek babe.” Hey, I know I’m a geek, but I don’t often get called an awesome babe. 
Somewhat backhanded: at work, a couple weeks ago I wrote up an internal how-to web page for one of our new tools. My boss told me the thing that jumped out at him was my correct use of the phrase “scripts were run” instead of “script were ran.”
Toward the end of my last semester of graduate school, one of the Ph.D. students told me it was too bad I was just getting my Masters and wasn’t continuing on for a doctorate.
Backhanded: After being out first ball in a cricket match, I walked back to the pavilion for the captain to tell me, “It looked like you had good technique out there.”
Best compliment: When I met author James Ellroy at a lecture/book signing, he asked me what I did. I said I was doing a Ph.D in history. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said. He signed my copy of The Cold Six Thousand “GO PH.D MAN!”
Right after having testicular cancer I went out with a woman who told me that with me she had the first coital orgasm that she had ever had. I needed that.
The most amazing online friend I have made told me “You’re the nicest person I know”
The fiance(who is rather attractive) of a regular at the store I work at told me I looked signifigantly more handsome with my head shaved than I did with long hair. That was surprising, in a good way.
I was told by an older male customer at the bar I work at that, “when I saw you, on a scale of one to ten, you were, like, maybe a six or an eight. Visually. But then when I started talking to you, you became an eleven. You really did.”
He really thought it was a very sweet compliment. He was waiting for my flattered thanks. I thought about saying, “When I first saw you, I thought you were an ugly old pervert. Visually. But now that I’ve been talking to you, I know it.”
As far as real compliments go…geez. Don’t they all make your day? My favorite was my English professor’s comments on my final paper that semester; she wrote, “You have the kind of maturity of voice we usually only find in much more experienced writers…congratulations on ending the semester with such a stylistic triumph!”
Words to cherish. (And yes, that’s a direct quote, because of course I memorized it!)
I had just taught a puppetry workshop and a little girl sitting next to me said “You play better than anyone I ever met before. Are you really a grown up?”
That’s great.
In 2000, I was at my friends’ wedding, and they had a wonderful klezmer band playing. Everyone danced, then we sat down to eat, and afterwards, I felt like dancing more. I grabbed one of the other girls, and we danced like maniacs, pretty much by ourselves, for a while. It was great. Afterwards, a great-uncle of the groom, who must have been in his 70s at least, came up to me and told me he really enjoyed watching me dance. Just a great compliment. A super end to a lovely day.