Top 10 Most Famous Dorothy Parker Quotes (BEST)
If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.
— Dorothy Parker
Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.
— Dorothy Parker
Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.
— Dorothy Parker
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
— Dorothy Parker
Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.
— Dorothy Parker
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
— Dorothy Parker
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
— Dorothy Parker
The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
— Dorothy Parker
Never throw mud: you can miss the target, but your hands will remain dirty.
— Dorothy Parker
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.
— Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker Poetry Quotes
“And I’ll forget the way of tears,
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Afternoon’
And rock, and stir my tea.”
“I think, no matter where you be,
You’ll hold me in your memory.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘But Not Forgotten’
“Star, that gives a gracious dole,
What am I to choose?
Oh, will it be a shriven soul,
Or little buckled shoes?”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Star Light, Star Bright’
“And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head
Because a dream has joined the wistful dead!”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘A Dream Lies Dead’
“I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘A Fairly Sad Tale’
“Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘One Perfect Rose’
“You- you’d only a lilting song,
Only a melody, happy and high,
You were sudden and swift and strong-
Never a thought for another had I.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘The Choice’
“And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You’ll never know.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘A Certain Lady’
“I shudder at the thought of men.
I’m due to fall in love again.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Symptom Recital’
“And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Indian Summer’
“By the time you swear you’re his,
And he vows his passion is,
Infinite, undying.
Lady make note of this –
One of you is lying.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Unfortunate Coincidence’
“If I abstain from fun and such,
I’ll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Observation’
“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, ‘Inventory’
“Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Interior’
“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.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Inventory’
Dorothy Parker quotes about love
“Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;
I’ll not be left in sorrow.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Godspeed’.
“Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Theory’.
“Lady, lady, should you meet…
One who keeps assuring you
That he never was untrue,
Never loved another one…
Lady, lady, better run!”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Social Note’.
“For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Coda’.
“Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘A Very Short Song’.
“Hell’s afloat in lover’s tears.”
— Dorothy Parker.
“Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
— Dorothy Parker, ‘The Flaw In Paganism’.
“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘ Comment’.
“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.”
— Dorothy Parker.
“The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core:
Scratch a lover, and find a foe!”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Ballade Of A Great Weariness’.
“We’re as Nature has made us — hence
I loved them until they loved me.”
— Dorothy Parker, ‘Ballade At Thirty-Five’.
I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.
— Dorothy Parker
It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.
— Dorothy Parker
If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
— Dorothy Parker
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!
— Dorothy Parker
She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go.
— Dorothy Parker
Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.
— Dorothy Parker
Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.
— Dorothy Parker
Better be left by twenty dears / Than lie in a love-less bed; / Better a loaf that’s wet with tears, / Than cold, unsalted bread.
— Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker Quotes About Life
This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.
— Dorothy Parker
The only dependable law of life – everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be.
— Dorothy Parker
Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.
— Dorothy Parker
That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say ‘No’ in any of them.
— Dorothy Parker
Tell him I was too fucking busy – or vice versa.
— Dorothy Parker
Honesty means nothing until you are tested under circumstances where you are sure you could get away with dishonesty.
— Dorothy Parker
Years are only garments, and you either wear them with style all your life, or else you go dowdy to the grave.
— Dorothy Parker
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.
— Dorothy Parker
More Dorothy Parker Quotes
I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be darling at it.
— Dorothy Parker
I hate writing, I love having written.
— Dorothy Parker
There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.
— Dorothy Parker
Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
— Dorothy Parker
Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.
— Dorothy Parker
The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.
— Dorothy Parker
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.
— Dorothy Parker
Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.
— Dorothy Parker
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
— Dorothy Parker