I had virtually the same experience and frustration as you Exapno Mapcase, and samclem’s comment is seeming plausible. Add to this “The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations” has 10 of her quotes, but this one, which seems so famous, is not included. It’s also not in “Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations”. Drifting over to the suspecious side.
[Mr. Burns voice] “Simpson, ehhhh?” [/Mr. Burns voice]
Hmmph. I only have three humor bookcases.
Anyway, there’s a book in there somewhere called Fighting Words a book of quotations by writers about other writers. I know she had some quotes in it. I’ll dust it off when I get home tonight.
oh woe - I aam ssure I read this in a book I have - not named “portable D. P.” but something similar. And I THINK it did identify the book to which it referred. Trouble is finding the damn book - My bedrooom floor is covered in books and general mess. (Hey - at least I am sure which room it was last sighted in! 
).
SO - now this is buggin me too, so I’ll be joining in the hunt to find out.
Grrrrrr - this could be quite a Quest:):)
No luck here. I doubt the Portable would have it. I have read and reread that bastid for years, and this line doesn’t crop up in my memory.
I just checked “The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations,” which has no less than 34 quotes from her. Not there, although it does have this about the Yale prom, credited to Alexander Woollcott retelling it in “While Rome Burns”:
“And there was that wholesale libel on a Yale prom. If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, Mrs Parker said, she wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
And you want to talk about dirty! Woollcott also recounted this story:
“‘Good work, Mary,’ our Mrs Parker wired collect [to Mrs Sherwod on the arrival of her baby]. ‘We all knew you had it in you.’”
And then, one of my favorite, which Parker did write: “The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.”
Hmmm, I’ll check my copy of “While Rome Burns” and see if there’s something in that.
[Mr. Burns voice]Burns, ehhhhhh?[/Mr. Burns voice]
All of my Books of Quotations simply credit the quote to “Book Review” as well, so no luck there. I did find another couple of old favourites to add to the collection though.
On Katharine Hepburn in a Broadway play: “She ran the entire gamut of the emotions from A to B”
“Brevity is the soul of lingerie”
“You can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think”, from a speech to the American Horticultural Society.
What did she have against poor Marie of Roumania?
No, no, no, no, no. Wherever did that one crop up? It was a standard game among the Algonquin crowd to make up atrocious puns on words like horticulture. Another one was Kaufman’s, I believe, “I wish you a meretricious and a Happy New Year.” Definitely not from a speech.
And Marie of Roumania was visiting the country around that time, to tremendous press interest. I assume Parker was merely comparing what she saw as her sorry lot to the fame, beauty, and general well-being attrributed to Queen Marie.
My favorite Dorothy Parker story:
She was a spinster till the end. So desparate she was, the door to her office said “Men”.
To Basswc: I have a humor book titled Wipeouts!, by Al Boliska, about 1968. He includes your quote but ascribes it, not to Dorothy Parker, but to Sid Ziff, a reviewer and sports columnist for the L. A. Times.
(Near the end of the 1965 NL pennant race, Ziff said, as the Dodgers began a home stand, that they are “seventh in team batting, eighth in runs scored, ninth in hits, last in home runs and FIRST in the league standings.” (Ziff’s emphasis.)
To Otto: Ms. Parker’s “Tonstant Weader” quote was in her review of Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, about 1928.
Slight hijack: Dorothy Parker’s second & third husband was Alan Campbell. They married, divorced, and later remarried, inviting the same people to both weddings. When someone observed "Most of these people haven’t been speaking to each other for years, " Dorothy added “Including the bride and groom.”
Alan Campbell was younger than Dorothy, and they had a very Norma Desmond-Joe Gillis relationship going. It surprised me that the actor who played Joe during the entire Broadway run of “Sunset Boulevard” was Alan Campbell. Art imitating life.
Not the same Alan Campbell. Mister Dorothy Parker died in 1963.
I knew that. Mr. Dorothy Parker’s mother (who was 7 years old than her daughter-in-law) use to introduce herself “I’m Mrs. Campbell. Not the wife. The mother.”
And the “Men” on the door story was a joke she told when she and Robert Benchley shared an office together, and had few people drop by. To encourage visitors Dottie suggested they put “Men” on the door.
It’s fascinating the way these stories have mutated over the years.
And if you’re going to get nitpicky, the Milne book was The House at Pooh Corner
No luck. Also the found the quote in the The Book of Insults, but no info.
I’m beginning to think it was just a smart crack she made. That certainly wouldn’t be out of character.
Oh, and the Margot Asquith quote makes even more sense if you realise that it’s about her (Margot’s) autobiography. All four volumes of it.
<off topic>
Speaking of Margot Asquith, is it true that when she and Jean Harlow first met, Margot corrected Jean’s mispronunciation of her name, saying, “The ‘T’ is silent, like in Harlow.”
Eve?
Most likely an urban legend: Jean Harlow was very well-educated and would not have mispronounced “Margot.” Still, it’s a funny story, and Jean herself probably had a good laugh over it . . .
[by the way, actress Ann pennington also put a “Men” sign on her dressing-room door]
Bump.
I’m still curious. Maybe Duck Duck Goose, born in a library, would get in on this.
Ah, Ann Pennington, of the dimpled knees!
Does anybody have the year of the quotation? The library where I work has the New Yorker for those years.
One of my favorite bits of Parker trivia: while she wasn’t rich when she died, she left what estate she did have (including her literary estate) to Martin Luther King, Jr. . This INFURIATED Lillian Hellman, who had been supporting Parker emotionally and often financially for years, but Hellman knew that to sue King would make her even more hated than she already was. (She did contest the will but I don’t believe there was a full fledged court battle.)
The Margot/Harlow line is all over the internet, but of course with no date or place. A couple of sites attribute it to T. S. Matthews’ Great Tom, chapter 7, but without the book I don’t know whether he is also just repeating it. Snopes has nothing on it.
It is one of the great lines in history, though, so good that it’s hard to believe anyone would just come up with it at a dinner party.
Oh, and Sampiro, there is no date or any other solid identifying information for the Parker quote.
My favorite of DP, paraphrasing:
razors pain you
rivers are damp
acids stain you
drugs cause cramp
guns aren’t lawful
nooses give
gas smells awful
you might as well live