Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) Some favorite quotes: [Wonderfully irreverent wasn't she?]
Another drink and I'll be under the host.
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end--I shouldn't be at all surprised.
It’s not the tragedies that kill us, it’s the messes.
All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me.
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.
Promiscuity: That woman speaks eighteen languages and can’t say No in any of them.
Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.
If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.
Where’s the man could ease a heart, Like a satin gown?
There’s a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Poetry
| 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. |
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? |
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. Drink, and dance and laugh and lie, |