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The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. ... Obscenity is too valuable a commodity to chuck around all over the place it should be taken out of the safe on special occasions only.

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
Nothing
Safe
Obscenity
Done
Special
Chuck
Think
Taken
Ruling
Thinking
Word
Nowadays
Whatever
Commodity
Place
Occasions
Beautiful
Letters
Around
Valuable

More quotes by Dorothy Parker

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It costs me never a stab nor squirm / To tread by chance upon a worm. / Aha, my little dear, / I say, Your clan will pay me back one day.
Dorothy Parker
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She can sit up and beg, and she can give her paw — I don't say she will, but she can.
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Gratitude - the meanest and most snivelling attribute in the world.
Dorothy Parker
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I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.
Dorothy Parker
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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.
Dorothy Parker
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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.
Dorothy Parker
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Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
Dorothy Parker
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Where unwilling dies the rose buds the new another year.
Dorothy Parker
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Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.
Dorothy Parker
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And where does she find them?
Dorothy Parker
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She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Dorothy Parker
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I wouldn't touch a superlative again with an umbrella.
Dorothy Parker
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[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.
Dorothy Parker
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It was written without fear and without research.
Dorothy Parker
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The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. The boys have gone hog-wild with liberty, yet the short flat terms used over and over, both in dialogue and narrative, add neither vigor nor clarity the effect is not of shock but of something far more dangerous — tedium.
Dorothy Parker
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Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.
Dorothy Parker
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I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem.
Dorothy Parker
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All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.
Dorothy Parker
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Maybe it is only I, but conditions are such these days, that if you use studiously correct grammar, people suspect you of homosexual tendencies.
Dorothy Parker
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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.
Dorothy Parker