“I regret to say that during the first act of this, I fell so soundly asleep that the gentleman who brought me piled up a barricade of overcoat, hat, stick, and gloves between us to establish a separation in the eyes of the world, and went into an impersonation of A Young Man Who Has Come to the Theater Unaccompanied.”

“When I was young and bold and strong,The right was right, the wrong was wrong.With plume on high and flag unfurled,I rode away to right the world.But now I’m old - and good and bad,Are woven in a crazy plaid.I sit and say the world is so,And wise is s/he who lets it go.”

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

“I think that I shall never knowWhy I am thus, and I am so.Around me, other girls inspireIn men the rush and roar of fire,The sweet transparency of glass,The tenderness of April grass,The durability of granite;But me- I don't know how to plan it.The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlockWere- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.They broke my heart, they stilled my song,And said they had to run along,Explaining, so to sop my tears,First came their parents or careers.But ever does experienceDeny me wisdom, calm, and sense!Though she's a fool who seeks to captureThe twenty-first fine, careless rapture,I must go on, till ends my rope,Who from my birth was cursed with hope.A heart in half is chaste, archaic;But mine resembles a mosaic-The thing's become ridiculous!Why am I so? Why am I thus?”

“‎Oh, anywhere, driver, anywhere - it doesn't matter. Just keep driving.It's better here in this taxi than it was walking. It's no good my trying to walk. There is always a glimpse through the crowd of someone who looks like him—someone with his swing of the shoulders, his slant of the hat. And I think it's he, I think he's come back. And my heart goes to scalding water and the buildings sway and bend above me. No, it's better to be here. But I wish the driver would go fast, so fast that people walking by would be a long gray blur, and I could see no swinging shoulders, no slanted hat.Dorothy Parker, Sentiment, Harper's Bazaar, May 1933.”

“I'll be the way I was when I first met him. Then maybe he'll like me again. I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”

“They say of me, and so they should,It's doubtful if I come to good.I see acquaintances and friendsAccumulating dividendsAnd making enviable namesIn science, art and parlor games.But I, despite expert advice,Keep doing things I think are nice,And though to good I never comeInseparable my nose and thumb.”