Dorothy Parker

I think she's the inspiration for most DLers.

Two favorites of mine:

"That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them."

“Living well is the best revenge.” (That one's my mantra, although I'm not sure it's originally hers.)

For the tortured writers here (to which I think there is a few):

"I hate writing, I love having written"

Once in her long-running feud with Clare Boothe Luce, Mrs. Luce held the door open for Mrs. Parker to walk through and said, "Age before beauty." Mrs. Parker walked through and said, "Pearls before swine." Another time, when told that Mrs. Luce was kind to her inferiors, she said, "And where does she find them?"

(Copied this from IMDb)

The most DL thing she ever said was surely her poem on the martini:

“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.”

My fave is her take-down of Ayn Rand ('Atlas Shrugged' IIRC) in a review:

'This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly; it should be thrown with great force.'

I think it was her who said to someone at a dinner party, "I hear you haven't got a good word to say about anybody. Do come and sit by me." If she didn't she should have

One of her most famous and often repeated.

"Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses."

A few more.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

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.

I hate writing, I love having written.

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone

You can lead a whore to culture (horticulture), but you can’t make her think.

When asked by her publisher why her work had not been submitted while on her honeymoon: "I've been too fucking busy or vice versa.”

No, R6. Alice Roosevelt said that. And she had many more to go with it. She was no slouch in the wit department either.

When told that former President Calvin Coolidge had died, she said: "How could you tell?"

She never actually wrote in a review of Katherine Hepburn in a play. "Miss Hepburn ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." But scholars think she did say it verbally to friends.

She never actually wrote in a review of Katherine Hepburn in a play. "Miss Hepburn ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." But scholars think she did say it verbally to friends.

“He had a hot ass but he couldn’t live forever.” (about Rudolph Valentino)

1. By the time you swear your'e his, shivering and sighing And he vows his passion is - infinite, undying Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying

2. All writers are either 29 or Thomas Hardy

She did say or write “Living well is the best revenge.”

R17 here. She did NOT...

At her husband’s wake a woman tried to console her and asked what she coul do for her. “ you can get me another husband.”. The woman was shocked and she said “no? Then get me a ham sandwich, hold the mustard”.

"The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about."

^ That was Oscar Wilde: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”

“Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”

It, hell. She had Those.

“What fresh hell is this?” (In response to a ringing phone.)

In one of her short stories about an ambitious bitch she wrote something like, “Her nails were as red and glistening as if she’d just ripped an ox apart with her hands.”

That always makes me laugh!

Her Who Goes Nazi essay is a classic. Works just as well for today’s hell society we live in.

Hepburn said she agreed with the A to B assessment of that movie. So it definitely existed in some form.

"What fresh hell is this?"

My favorite:

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

R30, I did that poem in the 6th grade. I am not sure what got me into more trouble, the fact that I chose the poem or the fact that I understood it.

If all the single women in New York were laid end to end I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

I heard that as:

“If all the girls who went to the Yale prom were laid from end to end, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

And, of course, there’s her reported choice for an epitaph to be carved on her tombstone:

“Excuse my dust.”

R33. You have the quotation correct. I swear, the number of misattributions of anything remotely witty to Mrs. Parker, as well as the mangling of actual ones (usually removing her wit in the process) would have driven her to drink...even more. Get it right or don't play.

R27 That's Dorothy Thompson, not Dorothy Parker

If all the girls at Radcliffe were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.

She invited someone to a party and the woman sniffed "No thank you - I can't bear fools."

"Your mother did," Parker replied.

Ducking for apples ... there but for a typographical error is the story of my life.

She, along with her great pal Robert Benchley, was caught at some speakeasy in NYC one mid afternoon by their editor from the newspaper or magazine they were both working for at the time. He queried them as to why they weren't working back at the small office they were sharing with others and Dorothy allegedly looked up at the guy with her big soulful brown eyes and let him know sadly:

"Someone else was using the pencil."

"When I died my dogs ate me."

The lazy twats here can't bother to Google their faulty recollections.

Because they're lazy twats.

I know she named her pet bird Onan because he was always spilling his seed. Parker died in 1967 and her great friend Lillian Hellman was the executrix of her will that left everything the Martin Luther King. This was the best, however:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea, And love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania.

I love that lampshade in the photo!

This isn't Dorothy herself, but it is about her and is witty, so I throw it in for good measure.

Alexander Woollcott was showing a guest around a building where Benchley and Parker were working. He pointed out Benchley, writer and renowned wit. The guest prompted, "And that would be Mrs Benchley?"

"Indeed," replied Woollcott, "But it IS Mrs Parker."

R39 re: Robert Benchley: "There was, for example, the time when Benchley and [Charles] MacArthur, cavorting down Fifth Avenue, happened to recognize Charles Evans Hughes, the former Supreme Court justice who was currently serving as the country's Secretary of State. Within seconds, they were fast on the diplomat's trail, shouting out 'Mr. Secretary of State! Mt. Secretary of State!'.

Hughes, more than a tad surprised at being recognized, turned to face the strangers calling after him. 'Yes, gentlemen?' he asked. 'Why aren't you down in Washington doing your job?' Hughes, his face flushed, spun around and hurriedly took off down the avenue, but that didn't stop the catcalls, jeers and raspberries. 'Yoo hoo, Mr. Secretary! We know it's you!' called the voices. Finally, the besieged Hughes bolted from the street, flagged down a taxi and sped away, leaving his tormentors, who by this time, were collapsed on the curb, doubled over with laughter."

from "Laughter's Gentle Soul, The Life of Robert Benchley"

Dorothy's second husband was writer Alan Campbell and apparently their marriage would not be out of place in the discussion of the Perkins/Berenson marriage in the Tony Perkins thread. He was long suspected of being gay and she was not shy about adding to the rumors when she was drunk. But, they remained together for years and years after separating and getting back together.. etc..etc. He died in their bed.

Anyway, they were hosting Lillian Hellman at their country house for a weekend when a loud argument between Alan and his Mother came roaring from an upstairs bedroom as Dorothy and Lillian were downstairs working on some needlepoint and knitting. Lillian kept looking over at Dorothy for some kind of reaction as the fight raged on but Dorothy just kept on knitting as if nothing was happening. Finally, Alan came flouncing down the steps, wiping his brow and loudly exclaiming: "It's hotter than hell in here!"

With barely a glance, Dorothy said: "Not for us orphans."

Hellman wrote that she erupted into laughter for so long and so loud at that reaction that both Dorothy and Alan wound up trying to calm her down by applying cold compresses to her forehead and patting her hand and saying: "There, there it's going to be all right."