Dorothy Parker quotes
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The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
-- Dorothy Parker -
If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.
-- 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 -
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 -
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I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.
-- Dorothy Parker -
That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.
-- Dorothy Parker -
You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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I hate writing, I love having written.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.
-- Dorothy Parker -
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker -
The only dependable law of life - everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
-- Dorothy Parker -
I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Where's the man that could ease a heart like a satin gown?
-- Dorothy Parker -
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I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.
-- 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 -
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 -
Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word "sophisticate" means, very simply, "obscene." A sophisticatedstory 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 -
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A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.
-- Dorothy Parker -
His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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She can sit up and beg, and she can give her paw — I don't say she will, but she can.
-- Dorothy Parker -
I like to have a martini, Two at the very most.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Writing is the art of applying the ***** to the seat.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.
-- 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 -
She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go.
-- Dorothy Parker -
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)
-- Dorothy Parker -
Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are.
-- Dorothy Parker -
The definition of eternity is two people and a ham.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
-- Dorothy Parker -
They sicken of the calm who know the storm.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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!
-- Dorothy Parker -
Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Women and elephants never forget.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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?
-- Dorothy Parker -
But I don't give up; I forget why not.
-- Dorothy Parker -
The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe!
-- Dorothy Parker -
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I give her sadness and the gift of pain, a new moon madness and a love of rain.
-- Dorothy Parker -
I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Hold your pen and spare your voice.
-- Dorothy Parker -
I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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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 -
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
-- Dorothy Parker -
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Writing well is the best revenge.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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It is that word 'hunny,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
-- Dorothy Parker -
On lady novelists: As artists they're rot, but as providers they're oil wells; they gush. Norris said she never wrote a story unless it was fun to do. I understand Ferber whistles at her typewriter.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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.
-- Dorothy Parker -
It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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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.
-- Dorothy Parker -
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
-- Dorothy Parker -
It costs me never a stab nor squirm / To tread by chance upon a worm. / Aha, my little dear, / I say, Your clan will pay me back one day.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Don't look at me in that tone of voice.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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.
-- Dorothy Parker -
All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.
-- Dorothy Parker -
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
-- Dorothy Parker -
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Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Just begin a story with such a phrase as 'I remember Disraeli - poor old Dizz! - once saying to me, in answer to my poke in the eye,' and you will find me and Morpheus off in a corner, necking.
-- Dorothy Parker -
A list of authors who have made themselves most beloved and therefore, most comfortable financially, shows that it is our national joy to mistake for the first-rate, the fecund rate.
-- Dorothy Parker -
Scratch a king and find a fool!
-- Dorothy Parker -
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