“I had been fed, in my youth, a lot of old wives’ tales about how men would instantly forsake a beautiful woman to flock around a brilliant one. It is but fair to say that, after getting out in the world, I have never seen this happen.”

“All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me.”

“They sicken of the calm who know the storm.”

“The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories of all literature.” (Her review of the book, The Autobiography of Margot Asquith, for the Oct. 22, 1927 edition of The New Yorker.

In another review, she wrote, “This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.”

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”

“Not much fun.”
(Her answer when asked by a bartender, “What are you having?”)

“How do they know?”
(Whispered to a friend when a Broadway play was interrupted to announce the death of Calvin Coolidge.)

“But as for helping me in the outside world, the convent taught me only that if you spit on a pencil it will erase ink.”

The day that I was christened…
The hag stood, buckled in a dim gray cloak;
stood there and chuckled, spat, and spoke,

‘I give her sadness,
And the gift of pain,
The new-moon madness,
And the love of rain.’

– Dorothy’s poem, Godmother 

– Dorothy Parker