Name:   architect - Subject:   I love them... Date:   7/18/2015 4:38:26 PM (updated 7/18/2015 4:41:26 PM)

They bring to mind some others:

During a debate in Commons Disraeli was using the terms "misfortune" and "disaster" without regard to any difference in their meaning. His political adversary William Gladstone asked him to give examples of situation to which each term might be applied. Disraeli replied "If Mr Gladstone fell into the Thames that would be a misfortune, if someone pulled him out that would be a disaster."

Mark Twain is supposed to have said the most miserable winter in his memory was the summer he spent in San Francisco.

When former president Harry Truman was asked whether he had any comment on Dr Thomas Altizer's "God is dead" theory he replied "I'm really sorry to hear that, I didn't even know he was sick."

Georgia Sen Herman Talmadge once asked a young intern what were his responsibilities in the office.  The young man replied that he responded to letters sent to the Senator's office. Talmadge asked whether he was sending a response to all the letters and the intern replied "Well I reply to all of them except the one from obvious nuts." Talmadge scolded "Young man you need to reply to the nuts too. Sometime if you don't get the nut vote you don't get elected."

Shortly after beng ousted as Prime Minister by Clement Atlee, Winston Churchill walked into the toilets adjacent to the House of Commons to find Atlee standing at one end of a long trough urinal. Churchill went to the opposite end. Atlee looked up and asked "Feeling a bit stand-offish today are we Winston?"  Churchill replied "Not at all Clement, just playing it safe, whenever you see something big you try to nationalize it."

President Lyndon Johnson had a bad habit of walking sround in the wee hours of the morning pondering certain political issues and was known to call former senate colleagues to run some ideas by them.  He once called Sen Richard Russell at 3:00 in the morning.  When Russell finally woke up and answered the phone Johnson said "Dick, this is the president, what ya doin?" Russell without missing a beat said "I was just laying here wide awake in my bed hoping you were going to call Mr President."