You can read many different accounts of Dorothy Parker’s life here on the internet, some dry, some sensationalist. The truth is wherever you find it; but closer to source, a biography published by a major publishing house before the 1990’s would be my go-to.
In any case, Dorothy Parker is known as a famed wit, book and plays critic, and writer of short stories and poetry. Born in 1893 in New Jersey and raised in NYC, she was one of the regular members of the famed Algonquin Round Table, a daily lunch held at a round table at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. For two years during the 1920’s, a group of famed writers met there every day to sharpen their wits and tongues, as well as to party-hardy.
You can also find many accounts of the Algonquin Round Table online. Strangely, very, very strangely, nary a one ever mentions Oscar Wilde, an esteemed and regular member of this group.
And so, due to this unfortunate lapse in judgment, we’ll begin our DOROTHY PARKER QUOTES with her enduring testament to the stellar influence of Wilde’s intellect .
If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it. 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 Excuse me, everybody, I have to go to the bathroom. I really have to telephone, but I'm too embarrassed to say so. At birth the Devil touched my tongue [On an actor who'd broken her leg in London:] Oh, how terrible. She must have done it sliding down a barrister A list of authors who have made themselves most beloved and therefore, most comfortable financially, shows that it is our national joy to mistake for the first-rate, the fecund rate. 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 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. [On hearing that President Coolidge was dead:] How can you tell? The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires. 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 If all the young ladies who attended the Yale promenade dance were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. 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 quote: Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I... Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience. If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to. If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me Honesty means nothing until you are tested under circumstances where you are sure you could get away with dishonesty. Q: What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? A: You can't hear an enzyme. That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both [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. [After she and Clare Boothe Luce met in a doorway and the latter said, 'Age before beauty':] Pearls before swine. [On hearing that Clare Boothe Luce was invariably kind to her inferiors:] And where does she find them? 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 Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word. Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city “So, you're the man who can't spell 'fuck.'" Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead" “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.” “The plot is so tired that even this reviewer, who in infancy was let drop by a nurse with the result that she has ever since been mystified by amateur coin tricks, was able to guess the identity of the murderer from the middle of the book.” “[When asked to use 'horticulture' in a sentence:] You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.” “Their pooled emotions wouldn’t fill a teaspoon.”
Hope you all enjoyed that.
I leave you now to find more Dorothy Parker wit and wisdom on your own. Google “300/or 309 quotes by Dorothy Parker. “