"[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."
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Quote collection
Dorothy Parker quotes (page 6 of 16)
316 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Of Orson Welles: It's like meeting God without dying."
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"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."
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"Little Words When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf, Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds; And I can only stare, and shape my grief In little words. I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown The bitter woe that racks my cords apart. The weary pen that sets my sorrow down Feeds at my heart. There is no mercy in the shifting year, No beauty wraps me tenderly about. I turn to little words- so you, my dear, Can spell them out."
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"The best way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk."
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"His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets."
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"There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine: This living, this living, this living, Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work is the province of cattle, And rest's for a clam in a shell, So I'm thinking of throwing the battle - Would you kindly direct me to hell?"
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"Oh, seek, my love, your newer way; I'll not be left in sorrow. So long as I have yesterday, Go take your damned tomorrow!"
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"Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are."
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"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."
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"Age before beauty, and pearls before swine."
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"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."
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"It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes."
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"They sicken of the calm who know the storm."
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"[After she and Clare Boothe Luce met in a doorway and the latter said, 'Age before beauty':] Pearls before swine."
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"Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!"
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"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?"
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"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."
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"Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain."
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"Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city."
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