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On lady novelists: As artists they're rot, but as providers they're oil wells they gush. Norris said she never wrote a story unless it was fun to do. I understand Ferber whistles at her typewriter.

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
Understand
Oil
Artist
Lady
Wrote
Gush
Stories
Artists
Whistles
Wells
Unless
Providers
Never
Fun
Typewriter
Understanding
Typewriters
Story
Novelists

More quotes by Dorothy Parker

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I like to think of my shining tombstone. It gives me, as you might say, something to live for.
Dorothy Parker
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Sometimes I think I'll give up trying, and just go completely Russian and sit on a stove and moan all day.
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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?
Dorothy Parker
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Of Orson Welles: It's like meeting God without dying.
Dorothy Parker
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All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me.
Dorothy Parker
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Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Dorothy Parker
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How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound if I can remember any of the damn things.
Dorothy Parker
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Don't look at me in that tone of voice.
Dorothy Parker
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They sicken of the calm who know the storm.
Dorothy Parker
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And where does she find them?
Dorothy Parker
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The cleverest woman on earth is the biggest fool on earth with a man.
Dorothy Parker
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If wild my breast and sore my pride, I bask in dreams of suicide, If cool my heart and high my head I think 'How lucky are the dead.
Dorothy Parker
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[On William Lyon Phelps's Happiness:] It is second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion. It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue ... and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.
Dorothy Parker
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The House Beautiful is the play lousy.
Dorothy Parker
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[When asked what was the inspiration for most of her work:] Need of money, dear.
Dorothy Parker
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It's easier to write about those you hate — just as it's easier to criticize a bad play or a bad book.
Dorothy Parker
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You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
Dorothy Parker
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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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You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.
Dorothy Parker
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All I say is, nobody has any business to go around looking like a horse and behaving as if it were all right. You don't catch horses going around looking like people, do you?
Dorothy Parker