Dorothy Parker Quotes - Page 3

It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.

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.

[On Katharine Hepburn's stage performance:] She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B.

You do what you can, and you do it because you should. But all you can do is all you can do.

Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies.

The only “ism” Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.

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.

Telegram to a friend who had just become a mother after a prolonged pregnancy: Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you.

[After she and Clare Boothe Luce met in a doorway and the latter said, 'Age before beauty':] Pearls before swine.

[On hearing that Clare Boothe Luce was invariably kind to her inferiors:] And where does she find them?

Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there, Weep and laugh and sweat and swear, Hear a song, or watch a stage, Leave some words upon a page, Claim a foe, or hail a friend- Bed awaits me at the end.

Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!

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.

A liberal is a man who leaves the room before the fight starts.

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.

Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.

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.

The writer's way is rough and lonely, and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say, cleaning out ferryboats?

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.

At birth the Devil touched my tongue.

Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.

I don't want to be classed as a humorist. It makes me feel guilty. I've never read a good tough quotable female humorist, and I never was one myself. I couldn't do it. A "smartcracker" they called me, and that makes me sick and unhappy. There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Three highballs, and I think I'm St. Francis of Assisi.

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

[On being shown an apartment by a real estate agent:] Oh, dear, that's much too big. All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.