See my nose? Of course!

CLICKY!

Vicomte de Valvert: Ah... Your nose... Ahem! Your nose is--rather large!
Cyrano (gravely): Rather.
Valvert (simpering): Oh well--
Cyrano (coolly): Is that all?
Valvert (turns away with a shrug): Well of course--
Cyrano: Ah no, young sir! You are too simple. Why, you might have said -- Oh a great many things! Mon dieu, why waste your opportunity? For example, thus:

AGGRESSIVE: I, sir, if that nose were mine, I'd have it amputated - on the spot!
FRIENDLY: How do you drink with such a nose? You ought to have a cup made specially.
DESCRIPTIVE: 'Tis a rock - a crag - a cape - A cape? Say rather a peninsula!
INQUISITIVE: What is that receptacle - A razor-case or a portfolio?
KINDLY: Ah, do you love the little birds so much that when they come and sing to you, you give them this to perch on?
INSOLENT: Sir, when you smoke, the neighbors must suppose your chimney is on fire.
CAUTIOUS: Take care-- A weight like that might make you top-heavy.
THOUGHTFUL: Somebody fetch my parasol-- Those delicate colors may fade in the sun!
PEDANTIC: Does not Aristophanes mention a mythological monster called hippocampelephantocamelos? Surely we have here the original!
FAMILIAR: Well, old torchlight! Hang your hat over that chandelier-- it hurts my eyes.
ELOQUENT: When it blows, the typhoon howls, and the clouds darken.
DRAMATIC: When it bleeds-- the Red Sea!
ENTERPRISING: What a sign for some perfumer!
LYRIC: Hark-- the horn of Roland calls to summon Charlemagne!--
SIMPLE: When do they unveil the monument?
RESPECTFUL: Sir, I recognize in you a man of many parts, a man of—prominence—
RUSTIC: Hey? What? Call that a nose? Na na-- I be no fool like what you think I be--That there's a blue cucumber!
MILITARY: Point against cavalry!
PRACTICAL: Why not a lottery with this for the grand prize? Or -- parodying Faustus in the play-- "Was this the nose that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium?"

These, my dear sir, are things you might have said had you some tinge of letters, or of wit to color your discourse. But of wit, you never had an atom. And of letters, we need but three to write you down: A-S-S!
                                    —Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand (Brian Hooker translation)

Don Firth