Dorothy Parker Quotes

American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist (1893-1967)

Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer, poet, and critic. A fixture of 1920s literary society known for her acerbic wit and low opinion of romantic relationships, she became a member of the Algonquin Round Table.

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Birth Name: Dorothy Rothschild

Alternative Names: Dot Rothschild • Dottie Rothschild

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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. p. 42

If you arrive late, you won't know what anything is about, and if you are there all the way from the beginning, you won't care. p. 277

Dotty had
Great Big
Visions of
Quietude.
Dotty saw an
Ad, and it
Left her
Flat.
Dotty had a
Great Big
Snifter of Cyanide.
And that (said Dotty)
Is that.

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)

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. p. 306

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

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.

Mr. Hodge plays with his accustomed ease, even carrying the thing so far as to repeat many of his lines with his eyes shut; and in a pretty spirit of reciprocity, many members of the audience sit through the play with their eyes shut. p. 175

Age Before Beauty." "Pearls Before Swine."

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

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

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.

If the English version is in what, in our youth, we used to speak of affectionately as dear old iambic pentameter, the actors mercifully abstain from reciting it that way; they speak their lines as good, hardy prose. p. 76

There is no such hour on the present clock as 6:30, New York time. Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.

And I'll stay away from Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds.

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