Parker claimed that she did not belong to a political party (in 1937). She said that the one group she associated with “that not especially brave little band that hid its nakedness of heart and mind under the out-of-date garment of a sense of humor.”
Source, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This, by Marion Meade
See the happy moron, He doesn’t give a damn. I wish I were a moron, My God! Perhaps I am!
“Don’t let me take any horses home with me. It doesn’t matter so much about stray dogs and kittens, but elevator boys get awfully stuffy when you try to bring a horse. You might as well know that about me now, Fred. You can always tell that the crash is coming when I start getting tender about Our Dumb Friends. Three highballs, and I think I’m St. Francis of Assisi…I’ve never had a single horse, Fred. Isn’t that rotten? Not one single horse. Ah, I’d like a nice old cab-horse, Fred. Wouldn’t you? I’d like to take care of it and comb its hair and everything. Ah, don’t be stuffy about it Fred, please don’t. I need a horse, honestly I do. Wouldn’t you like one? It would be so sweet and kind. Let’s have a drink and then let’s you and I go out and get a horsie, Freddie-just a little one, darling, just a little one.”
From “Just a Little One”
“Why did you want to go all the way over and get into that messy thing for? A person like you!”
Source: Dorothy Parker, What Fresh Hell is This? By Marion Meade
“When the train of history went around a sharp curve, he fell out of the dining car.”
Source: Dorothy Parker, What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade
“A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika”
“It required but a glance to tell that for him there had been no singing stars that evening in the heavens. He sat with his newspaper opened to the financial page, and bitterness had its way with his soul.”
From “Glory in the Daytime”
“I don’t think another drink would make me feel any better. I don’t know whether I want to feel better. What’s the sense of feeling good, when life’s so terrible. Oh, all right, then. But please tell him just a little one, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
From “Just A Little One”
“Yet, as she awaited her guest, Mrs. Hazelton’s anticipation was not without alloy. The thought of Miss Nicholl always brought with it a nasty guilt. She supposed she really ought to do more for the poor thing. But what more could she do? It was unthinkable that you could tuck a folded twenty-dollar bill into her dry palm; such people were so impossibly sensitive about being objects of charity. You could have her come to see you, feed her a drink, let her look at your pretty flowers, maybe give her some little thing you were through with-such a donation, unlike cash, wounded no feelings. Perhaps she might let her come oftener, and she must remember to keep Mary Nicholl’s name on the Christmas list. Such plans were soothing to a degree, but still the guilt sneaked back, and with it came, of course, the irritation toward the one that caused it.”
From “The Bolt Behind The Blue”
“They don’t cry. Only you see their eyes. While you’re there and after you’re back, you see their eyes.”
Source, Dorothy Parker, What Fresh Hell is This? by Marion Meade