I never realised that Clinton was misquoting Churchill!
From The Wicked Wit of WC (p. 121):
Another story has it that while visiting a parachute factory, Churchill absentmindedly took out a cigar. Immediately, the fire officer came running up:‘Sir, sir, you mustn’t smoke!’ he cried out. ‘Oh don’t worry, dear boy,’ came the reply. ‘I don’t inhale.’
Woody Allen said the same thing, sometime in the late '60s, when Dick Cavett asked if he smoked “grass”.
During the blitz WC was touring round the bomb sites and some old bat said “Mr Churchill, you’re drunk”
Back came the reply “Yes madam and you are ugly but tomorrow I’ll be sober”
And there’s the ever famous exchange:
Mr. Churchil! If I were your wife, I would put poison in your tea!
Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it!
Since we’re telling (possibly apocryphal) Churchill witticisms, how about the one where Churchill receives an unwanted open-house party invitation phrased thus:
Col. and Mrs Smythe will be At Home on Thursday, 21st October
To which he RSVPed:
So will Sir Winston and Lady Churchill.
Or when he’s seated at dinner next to a winsome young lady. He turns to her and asks “Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?”
She ponders for a while. “Yes, I suppose for a million I would.”
“So would you sleep with me for ten pounds?” he responds.
“Good heavens no!” she replies. “What do you think I am?”
“Oh, we’ve already established what you are,” says Winston. “Now we’re just negotiating on price.”
That last quote does indeed sound apocryphal, since I’ve heard it attributed to Groucho Marx.
spogga and friedo are both quoting exchanges between Churchill and Lady Astor. Whether they actually happened, I don’t know.
I believe this was George Bernard Shaw, not Churchill.
I did read about a time when Churchill was visiting the U.S.; his host had a dinner party in his honor. When the chicken was served, he asked for a breast.
The hostess said, “In this country, it is customary to ask for white or dark meat.”
The next day, the hostess received a corsage as an apology from Churchill. The note read, “Dear Madam: Please pin this to your white meat.”
Another good Churchill quote, for Grammar Dopers:
“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
There’s a treasure-trove of CHurchill quotes on the Web. A quick Googling turned up lotsa of sites; the best one, on a quick check, was this.
Well, gosh…if you insist.