Quotes from The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

“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

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“Lei si recava in biblioteca in media due volte a settimana, prendendo solo un libro o due per volta, perché ritornare a chiederne un altro era una delle sue poche gioie. Anche nei momenti in cui si sentiva più sola le piaceva trovarsi in mezzo ai libri, sebbene qualche volta fosse deprimente vedere il numero dei volumi che non aveva ancora letto.”
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“Cuando los primeros lobos aullaban, abrió los ojos, la miró y sonrió, y ella no pudo menos que sonreír también.”
― Laura Gallego García, quote from The Valley of the Wolves

“WHERE ONCE THE WATERS ON YOUR FACE


Where once the waters of your face
Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows,
The dead turns up its eye;
Where once the mermen through your ice
Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers
Through salt and root and roe.

Where once your green knots sank their splice
Into the tided cord, there goes
The green unraveller,
His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose
To cut the channels at their source
And lay the wet fruits low.

Invisible, your clocking tides
Break on the lovebeds of the weeds;
The weed of love’s left dry;
There round about your stones the shades
Of children go who, from their voids,
Cry to the dolphined sea.

Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids
Shall not be latched while magic glides
Sage on the earth and sky;
There shall be corals in your beds,
There shall be serpents in your tides,
Till all our sea-faiths die.”
― Dylan Thomas, quote from Collected Poems

“ - Хочешь, я сделаю тебя агнцем божьим в моей новой религии? Ты будешь знаменит и богат, они падут пред тобой ниц в ещё более шикарных отелях, чем этот. Ты, видно, новичок и плохо знаешь людей - их скуку можно разогнать только какой-нибудь новой религией, и чем глупее, тем лучше, - нет, убирайся, ты слишком глуп”
― Heinrich Böll, quote from Billiards at Half-Past Nine

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