Dorothy Parker Quotes

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Résumé Razors pain you, Rivers are damp, Acids stain you, And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful, Nooses give, Gas smells awful. You might as well live.

The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.

By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is, Infinite, undying. Lady make note of this -- One of you is lying.

In youth, it was a way I had, To do my best to please. And change, with every passing lad To suit his theories. But now I know the things I know And do the things I do, And if you do not like me so, To hell, my love, with you.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

I hate writing, I love having written.

Don't look at me in that tone of voice.

I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.

I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.

Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.

What fresh hell is this?

They sicken of the calm who know the storm.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

If I didn't care for fun and such, I'd probably amount to much. But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it." [Women Know Everything!]

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.

And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned.

Inventory: "Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. Three be the things I shall have till I die: Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go.

If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think 'How lucky are the dead.

Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.

Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.

So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'" Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead.

Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!

If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.

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.

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.

It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.

There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words." [Interview, The Paris Review, Summer 1956]

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

Time doth flit; oh shit.

Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)

I won't telephone him. I'll never telephone him again as long as I live. He'll rot in hell, before I'll call him up. You don't have to give me strength, God; I have it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me. He knows where I am. He knows I'm waiting here. He's so sure of me, so sure. I wonder why they hate you, as soon as they are sure of you.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.

Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.

But I don't give up; I forget why not.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.

Women and elephants never forget.

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.

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.

You think You're frightening me with Your hell, don't You? You think Your hell is worse than mine.

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

Q: What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? A: You can't hear an enzyme.

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.

The sun's gone dim, and the moon's gone black. For I loved him, and he didn't love back.

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.

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.

Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.

There was nothing separate about her days. Like drops on the window-pane, they ran together and trickled away.

I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.

For throughout history, you can read the stories of women who - against all the odds - got being a woman right, but ended up being compromised, unhappy, hobbled or ruined, because all around them, society was still wrong. Show a girl a pioneering hero - Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker, Frida Kahlo, Cleopatra, Boudicca, Joan of Arc - and you also, more often than not, show a girl a woman who was eventually crushed.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

If you want to know what God thinks about money just look at the people He gives it to.

Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.

I had been fed, in my youth, a lot of old wives' tales about the way men would instantly forsake a beautiful woman to flock around a brilliant one. It is but fair to say that, after getting out in the world, I had never seen this happen." [From a column dated November 17, 1928]

I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

If all the girls attending [the Yale prom] were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, And love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania.

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Living well is the best revenge.

If I had a shiny gun I could have a world of fun Speeding bullets through the brains Of the folks that cause me pains :)

The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'check enclosed.

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.

Some men break your heart in two, Some men fawn and flatter, Some men never look at you; And that cleans up the matter.

London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.

Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.

Where's the man that could ease a heart like a satin gown?

[On Oscar Wilde:] "If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it. [Life Magazine, June 2, 1927]

Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain.

Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty. Love is woman's moon and sun; Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives but in her lord; Count to ten, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it?

When I was young and bold and strong, The right was right, the wrong was wrong. With plume on high and flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. But now I’m old - and good and bad, Are woven in a crazy plaid. I sit and say the world is so, And wise is s/he who lets it go.

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.

I shudder at the thought of men.... I'm due to fall in love again

It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.

Symptom Recital I do not like my state of mind; I'm bitter, querulous, unkind. I hate my legs, I hate my hands, I do not yearn for lovelier lands. I dread the dawn's recurrent light; I hate to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find no peace in paint or type. My world is but a lot of tripe. I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted. For what I think, I'd be arrested. I am not sick, I am not well. My quondam dreams are shot to hell. My soul is crushed, my spirit sore; I do not like me any more. I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse. I ponder on the narrow house. I shudder at the thought of men.... I'm due to fall in love again.

Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.

Sometimes I think I'll give up trying, and just go completely Russian and sit on a stove and moan all day.

There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.

Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.

Men They hail you as their morning star Because you are the way you are. If you return the sentiment, They'll try to make you different; And once they have you, safe and sound, They want to change you all around. Your moods and ways they put a curse on; They'd make of you another person. They cannot let you go your gait; They influence and educate. They'd alter all that they admired. They make me sick, they make me tired.

All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

Be you wise and never sad, You will get your lovely lad. Never serious be, nor true, And your wish will come to you-- And if that makes you happy, kid, You'll be the first it ever did.

Lady, lady, never start Conversation toward your heart; Keep your pretty words serene; Never murmur what you mean. Show yourself, by word and look, Swift and shallow as a brook. Be as cool and quick to go As a drop of April snow; Be as delicate and gay As a cherry flower in May. Lady, lady, never speak Of the tears that burn your cheek- She will never win him, whose Words had shown she feared to lose. Be you wise and never sad, You will get your lovely lad. Never serious be, nor true, And your wish will come to you- And if that makes you happy, kid, You'll be the first it ever did.

There's little in taking or giving There's little in water or wine This living, this living , this living was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is the gain of the one at the top for art is a form of catharsis and love is a permanent flop and work is the province of cattle and rest's for a clam in a shell so I'm thinking of throwing the battle would you kindly direct me to hell?

I never see that prettiest thing- A cherry bough gone white with Spring- But what I think, "How gay 'twould be To hang me from a flowering tree.

It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.

If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again, If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much, But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn…

He'll be cross if he sees I have been crying. They don't like you to cry. He doesn't cry. I wish to God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry and tread the floor and feel his heart heavy and big and festering in him. I wish I could hurt him like hell. He doesn't wish that about me. I don't think he even knows how he makes me feel. I wish he could know, without my telling him. They don't like you to tell them they've made you cry. They don't like you to tell them you're unhappy because of them. If you do, they think you're possessive and exacting. And then they hate you. They hate you whenever you say anything you really think. You always have to keep playing little games. Oh, I thought we didn't have to; I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant. I guess you can't, ever. I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that.