On being told that someone wouldn't hurt a fly:
"Not if it was buttoned up."

#DorothyParker #Parker

Under interrogation by the FBI in 1952:
Listen, I can't even get my dog to stay down. Do I look like someone who could overthrow the goverment?

#DorothyParker #Parker

Experience

Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that clears up the matter.

#DorothyParker #Parker

George Reith's "The Art of Successful Bidding" is well over my head. I can't even jump for it.

#DorothyParker #Parker

I like to think of my shining tombstone. It gives me, as you might say, something to live for.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Of a performance by Katherine Hepburn:
"She ran the whole gamut of emotions, from A to B."

#DorothyParker #Parker

Braggart

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
While I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Of Margot Asquith's four-volume autobiography:
"The affair between Margo Asquith and Margo Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature."

#DorothyParker #Parker

There were two things that would always bewilder her, she said: how a zipper worked and the exact function of Bernard Baruch.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Talking to a friend about a garrulous bore:
Friend: "She's so outspoken."
DP: "By whom?"

#DorothyParker #Parker

Of the Yale prom:
"If all those sweet young things were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised."

#DorothyParker #Parker

Of the 1930s:
"They were progressive days. We thought we were going to make the world better - I forget why we thought it, but we did."

#DorothyParker #Parker

Women who live alone in small residential hotels throughout the United States have plenty of money and plenty of time: their only occupation is to spend one and kill the other.

#DorothyParker #Parker

On being warned by her doctor that if she didn't stop drinking she would be dead within a month:
"Promises, promises!"

#DorothyParker #Parker

Two Volume Novel

The sun's gone dim, and
The moon's turned black;
For I loved him, and
He didn't love back.

#DorothyParker #Parker

On finding herself a guest at a private house:
"I knew it would be terrible. Only I didn't think it would be as bad as this. This isn't just plain terrible; this is fancy."

#DorothyParker #Parker

On writing for films:
"I don't believe the films have anything to do with writing except in a crossword puzzle kind of way. Writing a script is drawing together a lot of ends which can be worked into a moving picture."

#DorothyParker #Parker

When asked by a woman sitting next to her at a first night, "Are you Dorothy Parker?"
"Yes, do you mind?"

#DorothyParker #Parker

On hearing that President Calvin Coolidge had died:
"How could they tell?"

#DorothyParker #Parker

Telegram to an actress who finally had her baby after many carefully contrived appearances during her long pregnancy:
"GOOD WORK. WE ALL KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU."

#DorothyParker #Parker