Dorothy Parker Quotes

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

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

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

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

tomorrow's gone-we'll have tonight!

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

He and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.

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

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

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.

A Very Short Song Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad- Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

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

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 :)

They sicken of the calm that know the storm.

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

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.

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.

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

She realizes she doesn't know as much as God but feels she knows as much as God knew when he was her age.

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.

Then she told herself to stop her nonsense. If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon, that you did not even realize you had gone out searching.

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.

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

God, the bitter misery that reading works into this world! Everybody knows that - everbody who IS everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rouchefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. Good for you, La Rouchefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read.

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

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.

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.

This level reach of blue is not my sea; Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,Whose quiet ripples meet obediently A marked and measured line, one after one. This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm. I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. So let a love beat over me again, Loosing its million desperate breakers wide; Sudden and terrible to rise and wane; Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide That casts upon the heart, as it recedes, Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.

Work is the province of cattle.

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

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

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

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

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

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

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

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.

They sicken of the calm who know the storm.

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.

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.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

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

Women and elephants never forget.

It cost 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.'

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

They sicken of calm who know the storm.

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

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

Where unwilling dies the rose Buds the new another year.

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

I hate writing, I love having written.

Poisons pain you Rivers are damp Acid stains you And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful Nooses give Gas smells awful You might as well live.