I require only three things of a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.

#DorothyParker #Parker

When the New Yorker editor, Harold Ross, asked her why she hadn't been to the office during the week to write her usual piece:
"Someone was using the pencil."

#DorothyParker #Parker

Superfluous Advice

Should they whisper false of you,
Never trouble to deny;
Should the words they say be true,
Weep and strom and swear they lie.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Mortal Enemy

Let another cross his way
She's the one will do the weeping!
Little need I fear he'll stray
Since I have his heart in keeping.

Let another hail him dear -
Little chance that he'll forget me!
Only need I curse and fear
Her he loved before he met me.

#DorothyParker #Parker

After a quarrel with John McClain, one of her handsomer young lovers:
"Yes, his body went to his head."

#DorothyParker #Parker

On being told that Harold Ross had called her on her honeymoon demanding belated copy:
"tell him I've been too fucking busy - or vice versa."

#DorothyParker #Parker

To a neighbour who tolder her her dog was a female:
"I always call dogs 'he'. It don't do to notice everything."

#DorothyParker #Parker

It's not the tragedies that trick us. It's the messes. I can't stand messes.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Of her second husband:
"Oh, don't worry about Alan. Alan will always land on somebody's feet."

#DorothyParker #Parker

On being told at a Halloween party that people were ducking for apples:
"There, but for a single consonant, is the story of my life."

#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

Why would anybody choose a career?

#DorothyParker #Parker

Godspeed

Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;
I'll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday,
Go rake your damned tomorrow!

#DorothyParker #Parker

On being told at a Halloween party that people were ducking for apples:
"There, but for a single consonant, is the story of my life."

#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

Of a play by Channing Pollock:
"The House Beautiful" is The Play Lousy.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Cherry White

I never see that prettiest thing -
A cherry bough gone white with spring -
But but what I think, "How gay 'twould be
To hang me from a flowering tree."

#DorothyParker #Parker

It's not the tragedies that trick us. It's the messes. I can't stand messes.

#DorothyParker #Parker

Godspeed

Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;
I'll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday,
Go rake your damned tomorrow!

#DorothyParker #Parker

Ballade at Thirty-Five

...Princes, never I'd give offense,
Won't you think of me tenderly?
Here's my strength and my weakness, gents -
I loved them until they loved me.

#DorothyParker #Parker