Quotes from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Lips that taste of tears, they say,
Are the best for kissing.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Oh, it's so easy to be sweet to people before you love them.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“When asked by her publisher why her work had not been submitted while on her honeymoon: "I've been too fucking busy or vice versa”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

“Every love's the love before
In a duller dress.”
― Dorothy Parker, quote from The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker (Modern Library)

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“Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.

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