Wit Wisdom and Quotes of Dorothy Parker

A collection of wit, wisdom, and quotes from Dorothy Parker on a wide variety of subjects.

THE WIT OF DOROTHY PARKER

"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end-I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

A review of Katharine Hepburn starring in a Broadway play: "She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B."

Suggesting an epitaph for her own gravestone: "Excuse my dust."

Asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

On a London actress who had broken a leg: "How terrible. She must have done it sliding down a barrister."

"A girl's best friend is her mutter."

"Wit has truth in it. Wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words."

"I bet you could get into the subway without using anybody's name."

Telegram to a friend who went to the country to have a baby: "Congratulations, we all knew you had it in you."

On learning Pres. Calvin Coolidge had died: "Why, I never even knew that he was alive."

"The only ism Hollywood believes in is plagiarism."

On hearing that Clare Boothe Luce was always kind to her inferiors: "And where does she find them?"

On a drunk who kept insisting he was talented: "Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough."

"I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia."

Reviewing A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner and his use of such coy words as tummy in her column "Constant Reader": "Tonstant Weader fwowed up."

On Oscar Wilde and her own wit:

If, with the literate, I am

Impelled to try an epigram,

I never seek to take the credit;

We all assume that Oscar said it.

Lonely in her office, yearning for the company of the opposite sex, she went out and painted one word on her door: MEN.

By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying-

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying.

Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses.

"Salary is no object; I want only to keep body and soul apart."

"Most good women are hidden treasures who are only safe because nobody looks for them."

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