Dorothy Parker

“I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”

“Accursed from their birth they beWho seek to find monogamy,Pursuing it from bed to bed—I think they would be better dead.”

“Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.”

“He'll be cross if he sees I have been crying. They don't like you to cry. He doesn't cry. I wish to God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry and tread the floor and feel his heart heavy and big and festering in him. I wish I could hurt him like hell.He doesn't wish that about me. I don't think he even knows how he makes me feel. I wish he could know, without my telling him. They don't like you to tell them they've made you cry. They don't like you to tell them you're unhappy because of them. If you do, they think you're possessive and exacting. And then they hate you. They hate you whenever you say anything you really think. You always have to keep playing little games. Oh, I thought we didn't have to; I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant. I guess you can't, ever. I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that.”

“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.”

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

“The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'check enclosed.”

“[On Oscar Wilde:]"If, with the literate, I amImpelled to try an epigram,I never seek to take the credit;We all assume that Oscar said it.[Life Magazine, June 2, 1927]”

“I'm of the glamorous ladiesAt whose beckoning history shook.But you are a man, and see only my pan,So I stay at home with a book.”

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

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

“There was nothing separate about her days. Like drops on the window-pane, they ran together and trickled away.”

“There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism. There must be a disciplined eye and a wild mind...There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Authors and actors and artists and such - Never know nothing, and never know much.”

“Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.”

“She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

“The House Beautiful is, for me, the play lousy.”

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

“The only “ism” Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.”

“His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.”

“Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”

“Woman wants monogamy;Man delights in novelty.Love is woman's moon and sun;Man has other forms of fun.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?”

“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.”

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

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

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

“Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.”

“You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.”

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

“Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.”

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

“She can sit up and beg, and she can give her paw —I don't say she will, but she can.”

“RésuméRazors pain you,Rivers are damp,Acids stain you,And drugs cause cramp.Guns aren't lawful,Nooses give,Gas smells awful.You might as well live.”

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

“Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!”

“I hate writing, I love having written.”

“They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good.”

“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.”

“A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.”

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

“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!”

“Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain.”

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

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

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”

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

“People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;God, for a man that solicits insurance!”

“The days will rally, wreathingTheir crazy tarantelle;And you must go on breathing,But I'll be safe in hell.Like January weather,The years will bite and smart,And pull your bones togetherTo wrap your chattering heart.The pretty stuff you're made ofWill crack and crease and dry.The thing you are afraid ofWill look from every eye.You will go faltering afterThe bright, imperious line,And split your throat on laughter,And burn your eyes with brine.You will be frail and mustyWith peering, furtive head,Whilst I am young and lustyAmong the roaring dead.”