Dorothy Parker Quotes

Rockliffe Fellowes gives a likable performance of the secondary crook's rôle, and there are some decidedly agreeable-looking doughnuts consumed in the first act. And that is about all one can say for Pot Luck. <small>p. 260</small>

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

There is one thing that appreciably eases the strain for the plays that arrive at this time of year, and that is that practically nothing is expected of them. <small>p. 306</small>

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

There is one thing about Fiddlers Three, though, that held my attention all through the evening: Try as I might I could only discern two fiddlers. <small>p. 42</small>

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.

Almost overnight, Dorothy Parker was transformed from a woman of letters into a gin-soaked quote machine, with a martini in one hand and a dagger in the other. <small>p. xiii</small>

I thought that was going to be a good song, too, and then they went and rhymed “time” and “Rhine,” and spoiled everything. <small>p. 24</small>

One more drink and I'd have been under the host.

A lady ... with all the poise of the Sphinx though but little of her mystery.

You know how a play in dialect is. At the first act, you think, "How quaint!"; at the second act, you wish they would either stop using dialect or keep quiet; and at the third act, you wish you hadn't come. And Tillie, may I mention in passing, has four acts. <small>p. 64</small>

72 suburbs in search of a city

The musical comedies of the month are She’s a Good Fellow and The Lady in Red, both of which owe their book and lyrics to Anne Caldwell—evidently a native of New York, judged by the casualness with which she rhymes “teacher” and “reach a.” <small>p. 82</small>

And she had It. It, hell; she had Those.

Anyone can do that—the stunt lies in not doing it. <small>p. 8</small>