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I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see.

Dorothy Parker

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Dorothy Parker
Age: 73 †
Born: 1893
Born: August 22
Died: 1967
Died: June 7
Columnist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Screenwriter
Songwriter
Writer
West End
Monmouth County
New Jersey
Dorothy Rothschild
Dot Rothschild
Dottie Rothschild
Taste
Away
Enough
Tentacles
Must
Chop
Great
Clinging
Work
Author
Good
Brave
Sake

More quotes by Dorothy Parker

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Be you wise and never sad, You will get your lovely lad. Never serious be, nor true, And your wish will come to you-- And if that makes you happy, kid, You'll be the first it ever did.
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But I don't give up I forget why not.
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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?
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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.
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At birth the Devil touched my tongue.
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The only useful thing I ever learned in school was that if you spit on your eraser it erased ink.
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[On Katharine Hepburn's stage performance:] She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B.
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We were all imitative. We all wandered in after Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay. We were all being dashing and gallant, declaring we weren't virgins, whether we were or not.
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London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful.
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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.
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And where does she find them?
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Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.
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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.
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You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
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Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.
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Nevil Shute's On the Beach is no Christmas carol, but it seems to me a remarkably fine novel, one which I read, in the peculiarly repulsive phrase, with my eyes glued to the page.
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[When asked what was the inspiration for most of her work:] Need of money, dear.
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[On Lou Tellegen's Women Have Been Kind:] The book ... has all the elegance of a quirked little finger and all the glitter of a pair of new rubbers.
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His voice was as intimate as the rustle of sheets.
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Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)
Dorothy Parker