Dorothy Parker Quotes

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

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

~ Dorothy Parker

ur 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.

~ 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

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ 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

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

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

MenThey hail you as their morning starBecause 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.

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

~ Dorothy Parker

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.

~ Dorothy Parker

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

~ Dorothy Parker

But I give you my word, in the entire book there is nothing that cannot be said aloud in mixed company. And there is, also, nothing that makes you a bit the wiser. I wonder--oh, what will you think of me--if those two statements do not verge upon the synonymous.

~ 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

The TriflerDeath's the lover that I'd be taking;Wild and fickle and fierce is he.Small's his care if my heart be breaking-Gay young Death would have none of me.Hear them clack of my haste to greet him!No one other my mouth had kissed.I had dressed me in silk to meet him-False young Death would not hold the tryst.Slow's the blood that was quick and stormy,Smooth and cold is the bridal bed;I must wait till he whistles for me-Proud young Death would not turn his head.I must wait till my breast is wilted.I must wait till my back is bowed,I must rock in the corner, jilted-Death went galloping down the road.Gone's my heart with a trifling rover.Fine he was in the game he played-Kissed, and promised, and threw me over,And rode away with a prettier maid.

~ 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

My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway of the morrows. He'll live his days where the sunbeams start, Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart, -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him.

~ Dorothy Parker

Little WordsWhen you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;And I can only stare, and shape my griefIn little words.I cannot conjure loveliness, to drownThe bitter woe that racks my cords apart.The weary pen that sets my sorrow downFeeds at my heart.There is no mercy in the shifting year,No beauty wraps me tenderly about.I turn to little words- so you, my dear,Can spell them out.

~ Dorothy Parker

I hate writing, I love having written.

~ Dorothy Parker

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.

~ Dorothy Parker

Hold your pen and spare your voice.

~ Dorothy Parker

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

~ Dorothy Parker

Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,Painter or plumber or never-do-well,Do me a favor and shut your face -Poets alone should kiss and tell.

~ 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

I find her anecdotes more efficacious than sheep-counting, rain on a tin roof, or alanol tablets.... you will find me and Morpheus, off in a corner, necking.

~ Dorothy Parker

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

~ Dorothy Parker

Now to me, Edith looks like something that would eat her young.

~ Dorothy Parker