Prince or commoner, tenor or bass, Painter or plumber or never-do-well, Do me a favor and shut your face - Poets alone… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. ... Obscenity is too valuable… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense?… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
[Hospitalized and pressing the nurse's button before dictating letters to her secretary:] This should assure us of at least forty-five minutes of… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
I wanted to be cute. That's the terrible thing. I should have had more sense. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Should they whisper false of you, Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and say… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
You do what you can, and you do it because you should. But all you can do is all you can do. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
[On Kay Strozzi in The Silent Witness:] Miss Strozzi ... had the temerity to wear as truly horrible a gown as ever… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
If I should labor through daylight and dark, Consecrate, valorous, serious, true, Then on the world I may blazon my mark; And… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine: This living, this living, this living, Was never a project of mine.… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Hollywood is the one place on earth where you could die of encouragement. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
“The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'check enclosed.” — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think Ill give up trying, and just go completely Russian and sit on a stove and moan all day. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
The sun's gone dim, and the moon's gone black. For I loved him, and he didn't love back. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image