110+ Dorothy Parker Quotes On Stupidity, Writing And Marriage

Dorothy Parker was an American poet, author, and satirist who was known for her sharp wit and insightful commentary on society. She was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits. Her poems and stories were published in magazines such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, and her work continues to influence modern culture. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Dorothy Parker on stupidity, love, writing.

Top 10 Dorothy Parker Quotes

1. The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
2. Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
3. The only dependable law of life - everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be.
4. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
5. Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
6. If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.
7. Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
8. You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.
9. I hate writing, I love having written.
10. If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me.

Dorothy Parker Image Quotes

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. — Dorothy Parker

If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you. — Dorothy Parker

Brevity is the soul of lingerie. — Dorothy Parker

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. — Dorothy Parker

I hate writing, I love having written. — Dorothy Parker

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. — Dorothy Parker

A hangover is the wrath of grapes. — Dorothy Parker

I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia. — Dorothy Parker

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Short Quotes

• Q: What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? A: You can't hear an enzyme.
• You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
• A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
• I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia.
• This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
• That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.
• I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.
• A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.
• I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.
• I like to have a martini/Two at the very most.

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Stupidity

I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid. — Dorothy Parker

Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. — Dorothy Parker

Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! — Dorothy Parker

If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to. — Dorothy Parker

My first love was Cinderella, but she ran off with another man. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Love

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? — Dorothy Parker

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt. — Dorothy Parker

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

Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty. Love is woman's moon and sun; Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives but in her lord; Count to ten, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it? — 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

Scratch a lover, and find a foe. — Dorothy Parker

My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled - Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world - And I wish I'd never met him. — Dorothy Parker

The sweeter the apple, the blacker the core. Scratch a lover and find a foe! — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

I shudder at the thought of men.... I'm due to fall in love again — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Writing

I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem. — Dorothy Parker

I can’t write five words but that I change seven. — Dorothy Parker

Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat. — Dorothy Parker

Writing well is the best revenge. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

I fell into writing, I suppose, being one of those awful children who wrote verses. I went to a convent in New York-the Blessed Sacrament... I was fired from there, finally, for a lot of things, among them my insistence that the Immaculate Conception was spontaneous combustion. — Dorothy Parker

It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence - no first draft. I can't write five words but that I change seven. — Dorothy Parker

All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me. — Dorothy Parker

Upton Sinclair is his own King Charles' head. He cannot keep himself out of his writings, try though he may; or, by this time, try though he doesn't. — Dorothy Parker

Despite his persecutions, Mr. [Upton] Sinclair reveals himself in Money Writes! to be an enviable man. Always the thing he desires to believe is the thing he feels he knows to be true. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Marriage

Benchley and I had an office in the old Life magazine that was so tiny, if it were an inch smaller it would have been adultery. — Dorothy Parker

Oh, it is sure as it is sad That any lad is every lad, And what's a girl, to dare implore Her dear be hers forevermore? Though he be tried and he be bold, And swearing death should he be cold, He'll run the path the others went.... But you, my sweet, are different. — Dorothy Parker

The definition of eternity is two people and a ham. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Money

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

Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are. — Dorothy Parker

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. — Dorothy Parker

Money was made, not to command our will, But all our lawful pleasures to fulfill. Shame and woe to us, if we our wealth obey; The horse doth with the horseman away. — Dorothy Parker

Money is only congealed snow. — Dorothy Parker

Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair. — Dorothy Parker

[When asked what was the inspiration for most of her work:] Need of money, dear. — Dorothy Parker

Sure, you make money writing on the coast ... but that money is like so much compressed snow. It goes so fast it melts in your hand. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Aging

Age before beauty, and pearls before swine. — Dorothy Parker

[After she and Clare Boothe Luce met in a doorway and the latter said, 'Age before beauty':] Pearls before swine. — Dorothy Parker

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. — Dorothy Parker

The Swiss are a neat and an industrious people, none of whom is under seventy-five years of age. — Dorothy Parker

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight. — Dorothy Parker

all men are the same age. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Death

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

I never see the prettiest thing -A cherry bough gone white with Spring -But what I think, How gay 'twould beTo hang me from a flowering tree. — Dorothy Parker

On being told of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge: How could they tell? — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Friendship

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy. — Dorothy Parker

Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship. — Dorothy Parker

Four things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. — Dorothy Parker

The friends I made have slipped and strayed. And who's the one that cares A trifling lot and best forgot - And that's my tale, and theirs. Then if my 'friendships break and bend There's little need to cry The while I know that every foe Is faithful till I die.' — Dorothy Parker

Then if my friendships break and bend, There's little need to cry The while I know that every foe Is faithful till I die. — Dorothy Parker

Telegram to a friend who had just become a mother after a prolonged pregnancy: Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Life

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. — Dorothy Parker

I misremember who first was cruel enough to nurture the cocktail party into life. But perhaps it would be not too much to say, in fact it would be not enough to say, that it was not worth the trouble. — Dorothy Parker

This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. — Dorothy Parker

Oh, both my shoes are shiny new, And pristine is my hat My dress is 1922… My life is all like that. — Dorothy Parker

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song — 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

Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it. — Dorothy Parker

There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil. — Dorothy Parker

[On being told party guests were ducking for apples:] There, but for a typographical error, is the story of my life. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Humor

Don't look at me in that tone of voice. — Dorothy Parker

Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. — Dorothy Parker

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. — Dorothy Parker

Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? — Dorothy Parker

If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again. 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

There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism. There must be a disciplined eye and a wild mind...There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Heart

And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned. — Dorothy Parker

Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom. — Dorothy Parker

Some men break your heart in two, Some men fawn and flatter, Some men never look at you; And that cleans up the matter. — Dorothy Parker

Travel, trouble, music, art, A kiss, a frock, a rhyme - I never said they feed my heart, But still they pass my time. — Dorothy Parker

If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think 'How lucky are the dead. — Dorothy Parker

Hell's afloat in lover's tears. — Dorothy Parker

Because your eyes are slant and slow, Because your hair is sweet to touch, My heart is high again; but oh, I doubt if this will get me much. — Dorothy Parker

Once when I was young and true, Someone left me sad- Broke my brittle heart in two; And that was 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. — Dorothy Parker

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

Where's the man could ease a heart, like a satin gown? — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Words

It is that word 'hunny,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up. — Dorothy Parker

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

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word. — Dorothy Parker

The two most beautiful words in the English language are: Check Enclosed. — Dorothy Parker

The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. ... Obscenity is too valuable a commodity to chuck around all over the place; it should be taken out of the safe on special occasions only. — Dorothy Parker

Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word — Dorothy Parker

Should they whisper false of you, Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and say they lie. — Dorothy Parker

She will never win him, whose words had shown she feared to lose. — Dorothy Parker

His books are exciting and powerful and — if I may filch the word from the booksy ones — pulsing. — Dorothy Parker

But I give you my word, in the entire book there is nothing that cannot be said aloud in mixed company. And there is, also, nothing that makes you a bit the wiser. I wonder--oh, what will you think of me--if those two statements do not verge upon the synonymous. — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Quotes About Storm

They sicken of the calm who know the storm. — Dorothy Parker

They sicken at the calm that know the storm. — Dorothy Parker

They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. — Dorothy Parker

They tire of quiet, that have known the storm — Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker Famous Quotes And Sayings

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. — Dorothy Parker

If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you. — Dorothy Parker

Brevity is the soul of lingerie. — Dorothy Parker

You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. — Dorothy Parker

I hate writing, I love having written. — Dorothy Parker

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants. — Dorothy Parker

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. — Dorothy Parker

A hangover is the wrath of grapes. — Dorothy Parker

I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia. — Dorothy Parker

How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. 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. — Dorothy Parker

If all the young ladies who attended the Yale promenade dance were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised. — Dorothy Parker

Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate. — Dorothy Parker

I won't telephone him. I'll never telephone him again as long as I live. He'll rot in hell, before I'll call him up. You don't have to give me strength, God; I have it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me. He knows where I am. He knows I'm waiting here. He's so sure of me, so sure. I wonder why they hate you, as soon as they are sure of you. — Dorothy Parker

By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing. And he vows his passion is, Infinite, undying. Lady make note of this -- One of you is lying. — Dorothy Parker

Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation. — Dorothy Parker

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

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. — Dorothy Parker

I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn. — Dorothy Parker

You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think. — Dorothy Parker

I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours. — Dorothy Parker

[On Katharine Hepburn's stage performance:] She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B. — Dorothy Parker

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. — Dorothy Parker

(Scottish Terriers) have all the compactness of a small dog and all the valor of a big one. And they are so exceedingly sturdy that it is proverbial that the only thing fatal to them is being run over by an automobile - in which case the car itself knows it has been in a fight. — Dorothy Parker

Bewildered is the fox who lives to find that grapes beyond reach can be really sour. — Dorothy Parker

I wouldn't touch a superlative again with an umbrella. — Dorothy Parker

The Monte Carlo casino refused to admit me until I was properly dressed so I went and found my stockings, and then came back and lost my shirt. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common. — Dorothy Parker

What ever beauty may be it has for its basis order and for its essence unity Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. — Dorothy Parker

Most good women are hidden treasures who are only safe because nobody looks for them. — Dorothy Parker

Vice is nice, but liquor is quicker. — Dorothy Parker

Women and elephants never forget. — Dorothy Parker

It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard. — Dorothy Parker

My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges. — Dorothy Parker

Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night. — Dorothy Parker

Where unwilling dies the rose; buds the new another year. — Dorothy Parker

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

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

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. — Dorothy Parker

Why is it no one sent me yet one perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get one perfect rose. — Dorothy Parker

[On being shown an apartment by a real estate agent:] Oh, dear, that's much too big. All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends. — Dorothy Parker

It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes. — Dorothy Parker

The best way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk. — Dorothy Parker

His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets. — Dorothy Parker

The writer's way is rough and lonely, and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say, cleaning out ferryboats? — Dorothy Parker

Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion. — Dorothy Parker

Art is a form of catharsis. — Dorothy Parker

Mrs. Ewing was a short woman who accepted the obligation borne by so many short women to make up in vivacity what they lack in number of inches from the ground. — Dorothy Parker

Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city. — 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

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch is, and it darts away. — Dorothy Parker

Well, there are always those who cannot distinguish between glitter and glamour . . . the glamour of Isadora Duncan came from her great, torn, bewildered, foolhardy soul. — Dorothy Parker

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. — Dorothy Parker

I might repeat to myself . . . a list of quotations from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things. — Dorothy Parker

Summer makes me drowsy. Autumn makes me sing. Winter's pretty lousy, but I hate Spring. — Dorothy Parker

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. — Dorothy Parker

Hold your pen and spare your voice. — Dorothy Parker

In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He shall ride the silver seas, He shall cut the glittering wave. I shall sit at home, and rock; Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock; Brew my tea, and snip my thread; Bleach the linen for my bed. They will call him brave. — Dorothy Parker

She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go. — Dorothy Parker

Life Lessons by Dorothy Parker

1. Dorothy Parker taught us to embrace our flaws and be confident in our own skin. She also showed us the importance of being kind and understanding to others. Lastly, she demonstrated the power of using wit and humor to express our thoughts and feelings.