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
“Wizard's Tenth Rule
Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.”
― Terry Goodkind, quote from Phantom
“The great reproach always brought against Rabelais is not the want of reserve of his language merely, but his occasional studied coarseness, which is enough to spoil his whole work, and which lowers its value.”
― François Rabelais, quote from Gargantua and Pantagruel
“If there is a defining characteristic of a man as opposed to a boy, maybe it’s patience.”
― Lance Armstrong, quote from It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
“To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that’s not how a person with integrity acts.”
― Patrick Ness, quote from Chaos Walking: A Trilogy
“Israel is the heart of all nations.” It was the conscience and the raw exposed nerve; all emotion passed through it. But it was more than that; it was the heart that suffered whenever any part of the body was ill.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Naked and the Dead
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