Dorothy Parker · 320 pages
Rating: (1.3K votes)
“In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“Inventory:
"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think 'How lucky are the dead.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“A Very Short Song
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, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high again; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“I know I have been happiest at your side;
But what is done, is done, and all’s to be.
And small the good, to linger dolefully-
Gayly it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied,
And you, being man, would have no tears of me,
And should I offer you fidelity,
You’d be, I think, a little terrified.
Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear.
To you, who never begged me vows or verse,
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
But after that, my dear, I cannot swear.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker
“Is it always in the interest of the public safety to seek the prosecutor's traditional solution -- the harshest penalty possible? Or is the public best served by finding ways to change a kid's lot in life for the better, even if that means opening the prison door?”
― Edward Humes, quote from No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
“He lets the door fall shut on its own behind him, and when I hear that awful click, it hits me even harden at that exact moment that Tyler just gave up. And I still don't rally know why.”
― Estelle Maskame, quote from Did I Mention I Need You? (Did I Mention I Love You
“Even in the depths of sleep, in which he had to satisfy his need for protection and love by curling himself up into a trembling ball, he could not rid himself of the feeling of loneliness and homelessness.”
― Bruno Schulz, quote from The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories
“I drove to the doctor's office as if I was starring in a movie Phillip was watching -- windows down, hair blowing, just one hand on the wheel. When I stopped at red lights, I kept my eyes mysteriously forward. Who is she? people might have been wondering. Who is that middle-aged woman in the blue Honda?”
― Miranda July, quote from The First Bad Man
“We come equipped with automated behavioral programs that motivate and stabilize cooperation within personal relationships and groups. These include capacities for empathy, vengefulness, honor, guilt, embarrassment, tribalism, and righteous indignation. These social impulses serve as counterweights to our selfish impulses.”
― Joshua D. Greene, quote from Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
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