Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhappy childhood, Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary output in such venues as The New Yorker and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Her letters, short stories, and articles are all brilliantly witty and I strongly recommend her work!
Quotes 1 – 5
1. I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
2. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
3. You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
4. 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.
5. I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound — if I can remember any of the damn things.
Quotes 6 – 10
6. Four be the things I’d have been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.
7. I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
8. Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
9. Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.
10. The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.’
Quotes 11 – 15
11. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
12. It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard. (Said when leaving hospital after an abortion).
13. All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.
14.
I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.
15. Ducking for apples — change one letter and it’s the story of my life.
Quotes 16 – 20
16. I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it.
17. If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
18. When asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence, Parker replied: You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
19. Of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Parker said: “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
20. I’ve been too fucking busy – or vice versa. (in response to a letter from her editor asking for more stories during her honeymoon)
This wasn't written by Dorothy Parker, so it probably doesn't count but it made me laugh and it is in the vein of the thread:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." – Anon.
(Say it outloud.)
The quote is more like..” well then if you don’t like that then go get me ham sandwich and hold the Mayo” said to her neighbor who was taken aback when she asked
Dorothy if she could do anything for her and Dorothy said “you can pay for the funeral”..
the sandwich was the 2nd idea.
Love 19…
Also I think it was Parker who said she wanted on her headstone; Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Genius woman.
she left lots of epitaphs, my favorite is “If you can read this you are to close”
“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.”
I love it.
She’s fabulous! I’ll have to check her out. A few of these made me laugh out loud, particularly the martini one!
I am soo happy you put this list up Jamie!! Dorothy Parker is my favourite writer.
Dorothy Parker is a brilliant writer – I own a book of her short stories and some articles and I love it – she was a very witty woman and more people should read her!
Always had a great respect for Ms. Parker. She and the rest of the Algonquin wits. In Harpo Marx’s autobiography “Harpo Speaks”, there’s a few chapters concerning the Algonquins.
Very good book.
#20 is *****ing superb, or vice versa
I am astonished by her wording. It is truely memorable. Memorable in that I will remember the line but not who said it.
Naturally, I have to comment on #19.
If she had spent a little less time cracking jokes, she might’ve known what good literature was. I’m sure Rand’s writings had more influence (and did more good) than Parker’s pedestrian quips.
rearden: naturally
I would like to point out that I love Rand’s writing immensely – but I still like Dorothy Parker – I just look past silly comments like #19 
It’s wonderful to see a women of that time so brutally honest… 18 and 20 are brilliantly funny!
HaHaHa. Thanks for this list! I am a great admirer of Dorothy Parker and this just amde my day
*made
I like it.
Jfrater: This is great. She is like a female Oscar Wilde. Can you recommend some of her best works? I’ve only heard of Dorothy Parker in passing and never really given her mush consideration.
SlickWilly: I would go for the short stories – any edition is fine – they are great stories.
Heh, these are pretty good mostly, a few of them strike me as pretty bland but some achieve that rare coupling of insight and wit that makes anyone with a brain smile.
Dorothy Parker! Gah, how I love her. Her short stories/poems are amazing! Terrific list!
The one I like is when her husband died and a friend was there to console her asked “Is there anything I can get for you” to which Parker responded “You can go out and get me a new husband”. Mortified, her friend said “that’s terrible, how can you say that?” Parker said “Alright, go get me a ham sandwich.”
Might be an urban legend, but it fits her to a T.
More of her quotes are contained in a great book called the Crusty Curmudgeon, along with Wilde and more of their ilk.
SlickWilly: I believe that that quote actually is normally attributed to Parker
jfrater: Get the f*ck outta here. Really?
20. I’ve been too *****ing busy – or vice versa. (in response to a letter from her editor asking for more stories during her honeymoon)
i’ve known of this quote for ages but didn’t know the context…thanx
and i love quote lists, seems to be getting decent traffic too. *hint hint*
Cyn: you reckon? It feels like a ghost-town on this list!
Yeah, it’s not really the Bible Stories list is it?
J..i’m a quote hound and a Parker fan..so i’m biased.
Everything seems like a ghost list compared to bible stories… except for geek movies of course. That list should be immortalized.
I must say that # 16 really struck a chord. I feel the same way! What a genius woman, I truly enjoy how upfront and ballsy she was.
my favourite story about her is how she named her parrot Onan, seeing as it was always spilling its seed.
Yay, I love the quote lists. I especially liked the horticulture one. =D And I quite like Ms. Parker’s work myself, which added to my enjoyment of the list.
Amazing how forthright and blunt she was considering the time frame, were talking the 1930′s thru 60′s I think. She was one of my Mom’s idols…..
sorry; I should read the intros…..
Dorothy Parker is an excellent writer, I have a good biography of her called “Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?” written by Marion Meade.
Quite good indeed.
I also liked “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” good film.
Boring…
I’m fond of her review in the New Yorker of A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner. Written with the byline of Constant Reader the review consisted of one line. “Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
18 – fantastic!!
i didn’t realize that there were women this outspoken about “taboo” subjects in that time frame. funny list.
can you see the tumbleweeds blowing through this list?
I have to agree with number 19, Rand is a serious yawn. I understand what Shrugged meant for literature, but it is neither enlightening nor entertaining.
The photo under Quotes, 11-15, sure looks a lot like Jennifer Jason Leigh. I can see why Alan Rudolph cast her in DOROTHY PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE.
I once made up a fake quote from Parker in a collage portrait I made of Leigh. Behind her are two movie posters from films her parents starred in; Vic Morrow(The blackboard Jungle) and her mother, the screenwriter, Barabra Turner, who looked exactly like her daughter in a 50′s sci-fi movie about a giant wasp called, MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL. It is my belief that if Dorothy Parker had seen MFGH, this quote would have appeared on the movie poster, ” I haven’t seen such a giant wasp since Alexander Woollcott, and this ones stinger isn’t, two parts brandy, one part creme de menthe”
Dorothy Parker tried to commit suicide more than once, but one of her best known poems is “Resume”-
Razors 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.
Love her. And the new logo looks great. Very purdy!
Interesting lady
“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.”
Yeah, and she’ll never be the subject of discussion on a website, 40 years after her death.
I would have liked to have met her.
Maybe she was jealous of Ayn Rand.
My favorite DP quote is
“If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
Great list!
She sounds like the kind of know-it-all I love to hate.
My favorite Parker quote is, “With this crown of thorns on my head, why should I worry about a little prick like you?” Wonderful job!
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
by the time you swear you’re his,
shivering and sighing,
and he vows his passion is
infinite, undying -
lady, make a note of this:
one of you is lying
how about:
there was a girl from Nantucket…
she is a genious
i loved number 20, and i havent really read anything by her, i will have to
a list of Mark Twain qutes would be cool, his quotes are always good
wow i wonder what her kids sould have turned out llike
Some other Dorothy Parker Witticisms:
“Oscar Levant once asked Dorothy Parker if she took any sleeping pills, and she replied,
“In a big bowl with sugar and cream.”
“Every morning, I brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
“How can they tell?”
- Dorothy Parker after being told of the death of President Calvin Coolidge.
“Tonstant Weader frowed up.”
– Dorothy Parker reviewing The House at Pooh Corner in her column “Constant Reader.”
“Obscenity is whatever gives a judge an *****.”
(In 1964, Justice Potter Stewart tried to explain “hard-core” *****ography, or what is obscene, by saying, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . ..”
Dorothy Parker advised Irving Berlin that in Hollywood, his lyrics for his song, “Always’ were not realistic. She offered the revision, “I’ll be loving you, Thursday.”
They sicken of the calm that know the storm.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937), “Comment”
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Dorothy Parker, on a performance by Katharine Hepburn
I know it’s probably not a very good thing to idolize suicide-attempters, but Dorothy parker i believe is an exception. Her kind of dark, but insightful honesties just give you like a whole new perspective of looking at things. I would put my favorite quote if hers up here, but the truth is i dont even have one. They’re all good and they all make me smirk, but i would say that her poem, Resume, (i know that’s kind of cliche, but it’s famous for a reason),might just have to be my favorite~~
DOROTHY PARKER IS HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What way the eclipse of the angery and beached
Took way the sinking sand.
It took the inmost being
And set it on dry land.
How can I forget the choices
So faint, yet imagery
No wonder may imagine yet
Good will for eternity.
When all the shadows broken
And no dust is left to spread,
Remember the brokenhearted.
You will not forget the dead.
Though shield and sheath may harden,
Infinity will go on
Until no left are those alone
And night will come from dawn.
The crevice of the wounded
Forever engrained in thought
Though crying still for victory
May remember what it forgot.
And even on my deathbed
Will the air I breathe surround.
And even in the tarnished pitch
Will it come up through the ground.
I typically roll my eyes at Parker, but she hit Ayn Rand on the head. People (that is, academia) tend to assume that any book with a heavy message and thick writing and a nice, rebellious message is good lit. I read, on encouragement of a friend, “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”. Both were immensely boring and showed only Rand’s capability of egotism. I even went so far as to give her a second chance and read “We The People” only to have my suspicions confirmed: Ayn Rand was a bitter woman with an ego the approximate size of the African continent and the same disease that afflicted Dickinson and Joyce.
I really must doubt the total intelligence of anyone who considers Rand a great contribution to the literature of the English language. Ken Kesey is a much more readable author, with something to actually say.
i love dorothy parker. im actually reading some of her short stories right now and she is quite an accomplished author, but if you do not understand her as a person, it will be hard to see the depth and subtle humor in some of her writings. the only thing do not appreciate about her stories, although quite fabuliciocious, they all end the same. every. single. one. the periods were for effect. he. ha. hoo. ok now. but one thing…
“SOMEBODY COOL”? ARE YOU SURE DOROTHY WAS THE AUTHOR OF THAT POEM? PLEASE IF ANYONE HAS ANY ATHORITY ON THIS SUBJECT, LET ME KNOW, BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS MORE LIKE ANTHONY TO ME.
PLEASE AND THANK YOU:)
Quote #19 was not said of Atlas Shrugged.
http://ask.metafilter.com/56179/Which-novel-should-be-thrown-with-great-force
I’ve never heard of this woman
But after reading this, she’s my new idol xD
Love her
What a cool Listverse coincidence, this was posted on February 5th which is Jennifer Jason Leigh’s birthday. She is the actress who played Dorothy Parker.
I’m doing a biography over Mrs.Parker for my English class. I had never heard of her before, but after reading some of her short stories and poems I have to say I can’t believe I’ve never heard of her before. My dad read some of her poems and said “You guys would have gotten along really well, huh?”
anywho, great list. I keep reading them over and over again and they get funnier everytime. 