Top 250 Dorothy Parker Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”

— Dorothy Parker

52. “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”

— Dorothy Parker

53. “Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.”

— Dorothy Parker

54. “I don’t mind anything that’s written about me, as long as it’s not true.”

— Dorothy Parker

55. “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.”

— Dorothy Parker

56. “On being told of the death of former President Calvin Coolidge: How could they tell?”

— Dorothy Parker

57. “The two most beautiful words in the English language are ’cheque enclosed.”

— Dorothy Parker

58. “I was always sweet, at first. Oh, it’s so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”

— Dorothy Parker

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

59. “Q: What’s the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? A: You can’t hear an enzyme.”

— Dorothy Parker

60. “Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.”

— Dorothy Parker

61. “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

— Dorothy Parker

62. “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.”

— Dorothy Parker

63. “Once, when I was young and true. Someone left me sad – Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.”

— Dorothy Parker

64. “Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.”

— Dorothy Parker

65. “Bewildered is the fox who lives to find that grapes beyond reach can be really sour.”

— Dorothy Parker

66. “And if my heart be scarred and burned, The safer, I, for all I learned.”

— Dorothy Parker

67. “Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.”

— Dorothy Parker

68. “But I don’t give up; I forget why not.”

— Dorothy Parker

69. “Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.”

— Dorothy Parker

70. “Civilization is coming to an end, you understand.”

— Dorothy Parker

71. “Most good women are hidden treasures who are only safe because nobody looks for them.”

— Dorothy Parker

72. “You think You’re frightening me with Your hell, don’t You? You think Your hell is worse than mine.”

— Dorothy Parker

73. “Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”

— Dorothy Parker

74. “It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.”

— Dorothy Parker

Featured in: Fun Quotes

75. “Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.”

— Dorothy Parker

76. “My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway of the morrows. He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start, Nor could storm or wind uproot him. My own dear love, he is all my heart, – And I wish somebody’d shoot him.”

— Dorothy Parker

77. “Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.”

— Dorothy Parker

78. “When you have to apologize, it is well, I suppose, to get the thing over quickly...”

— Dorothy Parker

79. “You can’t take it with you, and even if you did, it would probably melt.”

— Dorothy Parker

80. “Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there, Weep and laugh and sweat and swear, Hear a song, or watch a stage, Leave some words upon a page, Claim a foe, or hail a friend- Bed awaits me at the end.”

— Dorothy Parker

81. “Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song.”

— Dorothy Parker

82. “Eternity is a ham and two people.”

— Dorothy Parker

83. “Age before beauty, and pearls before swine.”

— Dorothy Parker

84. “Dear Mary: We all knew you had it in you.”

— Dorothy Parker

85. “I wish he were dead. That’s a terrible wish. That’s a lovely wish. If he were dead, he would be mine. If he were dead, I would never think of now and the last few weeks. I would remember only the lovely times. It would be all beautiful. I wish he were dead. I wish he were dead, dead, dead.”

— Dorothy Parker

86. “Gratitude – the meanest and most snivelling attribute in the world.”

— Dorothy Parker

87. “Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.”

— Dorothy Parker

88. “A liberal is a man who leaves the room before the fight starts.”

— Dorothy Parker

89. “This is me apologizing. I am a fool, a bird-brain, a liar and a horse-thief. I wouldn’t touch a superlative again with an umbrella.”

— Dorothy Parker

90. “The only dependable law of life – everything is always worse than you thought it was going to be.”

— Dorothy Parker

91. “Flowers are heaven’s masterpiece.”

— Dorothy Parker

92. “She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go.”

— Dorothy Parker

93. “I am at just that interesting age where i cannot keep out of things. I, too, must be in the know; I, too, must quote and sigh and nod wisely.”

— Dorothy Parker

94. “Ducking for apples – change one letter and it’s the story of my life.”

— Dorothy Parker

95. “Oh, seek, my love, your newer way; I’ll not be left in sorrow. So long as I have yesterday, Go take your damned tomorrow!”

— Dorothy Parker

96. “The Monte Carlo casino refused to admit me until I was properly dressed so I went and found my stockings, and then came back and lost my shirt.”

— Dorothy Parker

97. “Where’s the man that could ease a heart like a satin gown?”

— Dorothy Parker

98. “What ever beauty may be it has for its basis order and for its essence unity Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

— Dorothy Parker

99. “People are more fun than anyone.”

— Dorothy Parker

Featured in: Fun Quotes

100. “Woman wants monogamy; Man delights in novelty. Love is woman’s moon and sun; Man has other forms of fun. Woman lives but in her lord; Count to ten, and man is bored. With this the gist and sum of it, What earthly good can come of it?”

— Dorothy Parker

Featured in: Fun Quotes