Dorothy Parker Quotes

188 Sourced Quotes

When asked if she'd enjoyed a cocktail party:
Enjoyed it! One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

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

Dorothy Parker
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.

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

Dorothy Parker
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, Undying—
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

Dorothy Parker
It has lately been drawn to your correspondent's attention that, at social gatherings, she is not the human magnet she would be. Indeed, it turns out that as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, she ranks somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.

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

Dorothy Parker
And I'll stay away from Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds.

Dorothy Parker
In short, there is everything about this season's entertainment to make the Hippodrome what it always is—a Temple of the Arts to all those who hang pennants on their automobiles, use Shake hands with my friend as a formula for introduction, and sprinkle powdered sugar on their sliced tomatoes.

Dorothy Parker
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?

Dorothy Parker
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!

Dorothy Parker
If you arrive late, you won't know what anything is about, and if you are there all the way from the beginning, you won't care.

Dorothy Parker
The Swiss are a neat and an industrious people, none of whom is under seventy-five years of age.

Dorothy Parker
Writing a book for the Follies seems to be about as profitable an occupation as furnishing flannel petticoats for the showgirls.

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

Dorothy Parker
The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters.... Obscenity is too valuable a commodity to chuck around all over the place; it should be taken out of the safe on special occasions only.

Dorothy Parker
On her abortion:
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.

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

Dorothy Parker
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Dorothy Parker
There are times when images blow to fluff, and comparisons stiffen and shrivel.

Dorothy Parker
The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe!

Dorothy Parker
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.

Dorothy Parker
I'll think about something else. I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still, maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other, truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know it's a lie, it's a God-damned lie? What do they have to tell about that for, when they know how it hurts?

Dorothy Parker
Van and Schenck put their songs over so skillfully that it isn't until their act is all done that you realize what extremely indifferent songs they are. Now, when John Steel is singing, on the other hand, you are never fooled for a moment.

Dorothy Parker
Sure, you make money writing on the coast... but that money is like so much compressed snow. It goes so fast it melts in your hand.

Dorothy Parker
He lies below, correct in cypress wood, And entertains the most exclusive worms.

Dorothy Parker
The ladies men admire, I've heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light, They'd rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake 'till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints... So far I've had no complaints.

Dorothy Parker
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.

Dorothy Parker
Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.

Dorothy Parker