Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Manners
I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Men, Man
Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, Freckles and doubt.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Love, Doubt, Better
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.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damned things.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Quotations
All I say is, nobody has any business to go around looking like a horse and behaving as if it were all right. You don’t catch horses going around looking like people, do you?
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: People
Gratitude—the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Gratitude
I can’t talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it’s a horror to look back on. I can’t imagine how I did it. When I got away from it I couldn’t even refer to the place by name. “Out there,” I called it.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Hollywood
Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Love
I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Apathy
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.
—Dorothy Parker
I never see the prettiest thing –
A cherry bough gone white with Spring –
But what I think, How gay ‘twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Death
Women and elephants never forget.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Memories
Once when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that was 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.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Love
You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
The best way to keep children at home is to make home a pleasant atmosphere – and to let the air out of the tires.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Children, Home
Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Fame
Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Lovers, Love
Oh seek, my love, your newer way;
I’ll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday
Go take your damned tomorrow!
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Procrastination
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Boredom, Curiosity, Bores
Well, there are always those who cannot distinguish between glitter and glamour …
—Dorothy Parker
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.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Birth, Pregnancy
Hollywood money isn’t money. It’s congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Hollywood
As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Difficulty
Constant use will not wear ragged the fabric of friendship.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Friendship
Where’s the man could ease a heart, like a satin gown?
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Fashion, Dress
Travel, trouble, music, art,
A kiss, a frock, a rhyme –
I never said they feed my heart,
But still they pass my time.
—Dorothy Parker
Four 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
Topics: Reflection, Sorrow, Friendship, Wine, Idleness
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Money, Wealth
Summer makes me drowsy. Autumn makes me sing. Winter’s pretty lousy, but I hate Spring.
—Dorothy Parker
Topics: Autumn
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Cornelia Otis Skinner American Actress, Playwright
- James Russell Lowell American Poet, Critic
- Edwin Markham American Poet
- Stanley Kubrick American Film Director
- Saul Bellow Canadian-born American Novelist
- Joyce Carol Oates American Novelist
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman American Feminist, Writer
- Woody Allen American Film Actor, Director
- Edna St. Vincent Millay American Poet
- Mary Oliver American Poet
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