“I never thought that heav’n would lose its blue
And sullen storm-clouds mask the gentle sky;
I never thought the rose’s velvet hue
Would pale and sicken, though we said good-by.
I never dreamed the lark would hush its note
As day succeeded ever-drearier day,
Nor knew the song that swelled the robin’s throat
Would fade to silence, when you went away.
I [...]
[My parents would] “go down to Ellis Island and bring them, still bleeding, home to do laundry. You know, that didn’t encourage them to behave well.”
Source Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
“Once I was coming down a street in Beverly Hills and I saw a Cadillac about a block long, and out of the side window was a wonderfully slinky mink, and an arm, and at the end of the arm a hand in a white suede glove wrinkled at the wrist, and in the hand [...]
“Maybe we’d better have another round of drinks…This is not going so well, I feel miserable.”
Her response when asked about an election. From Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is this?
“I don’t want the vote for myself,
But women with property, dear–”
Source: Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
“Here I am sitting at this rotten desk working my head off, and everybody else out having a good time…All I ever do is work. And these the best years of my life. Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll stay here and work, and you all go along and have a good time. [...]
“The way I’d like to get money is in chunks, not drips.”
From “In the Throes”
“One more week’s crabbing out of me, and I fear that you will take to throwing eggs. Yet I am forced again to tell a tale of woe, for I have no other. And I can’t, you will admit, just stand up here in front of you and make faces to earn my [...]