All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me. Dorothy Parker
Better be left by twenty dears
Than lie in a love-less bed;
Better a loaf that’s wet with tears,
Than cold, unsalted bread.
Dorothy Parker
Brevity is the soul of lingerie. Dorothy Parker
Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. Dorothy Parker
Gratitude: the meanest and most snivelling attribute in the world. Dorothy Parker
He and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery. Dorothy Parker
How do people go to sleep? I’m afraid I’ve lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. Dorothy Parker
I can’t talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it’s a horror to look back on. I can’t imagine how I did it. When I got away from it I couldn’t even refer to the place by name. ”Out there,” I called it. Dorothy Parker
I hate writing, I love having written. Dorothy Parker
I require three things in a man: He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid. Dorothy Parker
I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Dorothy Parker
I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money. Dorothy Parker
If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. Dorothy Parker
I’m never going to accomplish anything; that’s perfectly clear to me. I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more. Dorothy Parker
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard. Dorothy Parker
Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies. Dorothy Parker
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
Dorothy Parker
Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair. Dorothy Parker
One more drink and I’d have been under the host. Dorothy Parker
Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word ‘sophisticate’ means, very simply, ‘obscene’. A sophisticated story is a dirty story. Some of that meaning was wafted eastward and got itself mixed up into the present definition. So that a ‘sophisticate’ means: one who dwells in a tower made of a DuPont substitute for ivory and holds a glass of flat champagne in one hand and an album of dirty post cards in the other. Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker Quotes
Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart. Dorothy Parker
Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion. Dorothy Parker
Summer makes me drowsy. Autumn makes me sing. Winter’s pretty lousy, but I hate Spring. Dorothy Parker
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. Dorothy Parker
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. Dorothy Parker
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Dorothy Parker
The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy. Dorothy Parker
The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. Dorothy Parker
There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. Dorothy Parker
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. Dorothy Parker
Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Dorothy Parker
You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks. Dorothy Parker