Quotes from Dorothy Parker

I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.

Excuse my dust.

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

Trapped like a trap in a trap

Once, when I was young and true. Someone left me sad - Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.

Prince or commoner, tenor or bass, Painter or plumber or never-do-well, Do me a favor and shut your face - Poets alone should kiss and tell.

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.

Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there, Weep and laugh and sweat and swear, Hear a song, or watch a stage, Leave some words upon a page, Claim a foe, or hail a friend- Bed awaits me at the end.

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

This is me apologizing. I am a fool, a bird-brain, a liar and a horse-thief. I wouldn't touch a superlative again with an umbrella.

The ladies men admire, I've heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light, They'd rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake 'till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints... So far I've had no complaints.

Travel, trouble, music, art, a kiss, a frock, a rhyme -- I never said they feed my heart, but still they pass my time.

They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come Inseparable my nose and thumb.

There was a reason for the cost of those perfectly plain black dresses.

My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway of the morrows. He'll live his days where the sunbeams start, Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart, -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him.

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.

The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Ah, clear they see and true they say That one shall weep, and one shall stray

Then she told herself to stop her nonsense. If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon, that you did not even realize you had gone out searching. Women alone often developed into experts at the practice. She must never join their dismal league.

How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack.

Now to me, Edith looks like something that would eat her young.

Friends come and go but I wouldn't have thought you'd be one of them

A Very Short Song Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad- Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.

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