# What's your favorite Dorothy Parker quote?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 7, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467 "2010-08-07T00:00:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/1 "2010-08-07T00:00:28Z")
“Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.”
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/2 "2010-08-07T00:09:49Z")
I doubt MS. Parker said that. Can you prove me wrong?
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/3 "2010-08-07T00:35:09Z")
[http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality\_is\_not\_normal-it-s\_just/182842.html](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality_is_not_normal-it-s_just/182842.html)
[http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html](http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html)
> **[60 Witty Quotes From Writer and Critic Dorothy Parker](https://www.thoughtco.com/dorothy-parker-quotes-3530066)**
>
> When asked whether she was Dorothy Parker, she replied, "Yes, do you mind?" This and other quotes by the great Dorothy Parker are collected here!
[http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex\_quotes48.shtml](http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex_quotes48.shtml)
> **[A quote by Dorothy Parker](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/28292-heterosexuality-is-not-normal-it-s-just-common)**
>
> Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.
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### Author:  [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/4 "2010-08-07T00:39:32Z")
God, so many…can’t choose…how about the size of her office- one less inch, it would been adultry?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/5 "2010-08-07T00:49:35Z")
• You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
• Ducking for apples – change one letter and it’s the story of my life.
• Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
• She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/6 "2010-08-07T00:50:53Z")
> [@Cajun Man](#):
>
> [http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality\_is\_not\_normal-it-s\_just/182842.html](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality_is_not_normal-it-s_just/182842.html)
>
> [http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html](http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html)
>
> [Dorothy Parker Quotes](http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/dorothy_parker.htm)
>
> [http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex\_quotes48.shtml](http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex_quotes48.shtml)
>
> [Quote by Dorothy Parker: “Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/28292)
Internet postings are notoriously wrong, and almost always unsourced. I’d accept a cite from a book which footnotes where she said it. I’d accept a newspaper/magazine article which sources the quote.
She never said this.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/7 "2010-08-07T00:57:05Z")
“How do they know?” (on being told that Calvin Coolidge had died)
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/8 "2010-08-07T00:57:31Z")
An enormous variety of clever lines are attributed to Dorothy Parker. Most of them she didn’t actually say. None of the webpages you quote say where in her writings she said that line. It’s possible that someone made up that line at some point and attributed it to Parker. Later other people started quoting it without checking if was really her line. I certainly wouldn’t swear that she said it until someone comes up with the exact place where she first published it (or a pretty good source that claims to have heard her say it).
Incidentally, here’s a thread in which we examine one of the most famous Parker lines:
> **['A book to be thrown with great force'--actual source found?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=532756)**
>
> While googling something else, I came upon this archived thread from 2002, wherein a bunch of Dopers tried & failed to find the original use of the quote, “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great...
As you can see, there’s no convincing proof that she said, “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.”
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/9 "2010-08-07T01:05:15Z")
> [@samclem](#):
>
> > [@Cajun Man](#):
> >
> > [http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality\_is\_not\_normal-it-s\_just/182842.html](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/heterosexuality_is_not_normal-it-s_just/182842.html)
> >
> > [http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html](http://www.lifeprintastrology.com/Pages/HeterosexualityCommon.html)
> >
> > [Dorothy Parker Quotes](http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/dorothy_parker.htm)
> >
> > [http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex\_quotes48.shtml](http://www.allgreatquotes.com/sex_quotes48.shtml)
> >
> > [Quote by Dorothy Parker: “Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/28292)
>
> Internet postings are notoriously wrong, and almost always unsourced. I’d accept a cite from a book which footnotes where she said it. I’d accept a newspaper/magazine article which sources the quote.
>
> She never said this.
What about [Wikiquote](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker)?
“It is that word ‘hunny,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in _The House at Pooh Corner_ at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: ‘Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.’”
“One more drink and I’d have been under the host.”
“There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/10 "2010-08-07T01:13:06Z")
[QUOTE=samclem]
Internet postings are notoriously wrong, and almost always unsourced. I’d accept a cite from a book which footnotes where she said it. I’d accept a newspaper/magazine article which sources the quote.
She never said this.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What about [Wikiquote](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker)?
“It is that word ‘hunny,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in _The House at Pooh Corner_ at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
“That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: ‘Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.’”
“One more drink and I’d have been under the host.”
“There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”
[/QUOTE]
Wikiquotes is good as far as it goes. I didn’t see the “heterosexual” quote on there.
Some of the others have been antedated.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/11 "2010-08-07T02:34:00Z")
The OP’s quote is my favorite . . . whether or not she ever said it. And how about:
_“Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.”_
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/12 "2010-08-07T02:40:05Z")
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
—“One Perfect Rose,” from _Enough Rope_, 1926
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### Author:  [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/13 "2010-08-07T02:54:47Z")
My favorite is “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/14 "2010-08-07T07:21:44Z")
Since it’s nearly impossible to verify the authenticity of all the quotations attributed to Dorothy Parker, why not just change the title of this thread to “What’s your favorite (possible apocryphal) Dorothy Parker quote?”.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/15 "2010-08-07T14:23:02Z")
IThe story of my life is summed up by her poen Résumé:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
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### Author:  [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/16 "2010-08-07T17:32:33Z")
I like to have a martini,
two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under the host.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/17 "2010-08-07T18:04:47Z")
[Dorothy Parker Quotes - The Quotations Page](http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dorothy_Parker/) I can’t believe no one said, Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
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### Author:  [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/18 "2010-08-07T18:13:03Z")
When her door bell rang: “What fresh hell is this?” I use it when my cell phone rings.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/19 "2010-08-07T18:20:30Z")
“This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly…”
I have this in a battered quotation book, a fat paperback from the early '80s probably (so battered the cover & copyright page are gone), but it does not say which book she was reviewing when she allegedly said it.
The earliest source for it I can find on the internet is the 1968 book about the Algonquin Round Table–my browser keeps throwing me out of amazon.com–but it looks like a lot of these print sources attribute the quote to her review of Mussolini’s foray into romantic suspense, and it’s just not there.
But it’s a great quote, and somebody said it. It sure sounds like DP. If she didn’t put it in a book review, I would wonder why not. Surely not for fear of offending the writer. If it was in one of her published book reviews someone would certainly have found it by now. But if somebody else said it, you would think they would want the attribution.
I liked the one where she said the book was perfect to read in the bath. Not too heavy, and it you drop it in the tub, oh well. (Not a precise quote, hers was better. I can’t find the review. I know it’s in here somewhere…)
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### Author:  [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467/20 "2010-08-07T18:42:34Z")
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> “How do they know?” (on being told that Calvin Coolidge had died)
It was “How could they tell?”
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> “It is that word ‘hunny,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in _The House at Pooh Corner_ at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
The word is spelled that way in, at least, the Disney adaptation of _WtP_, but the word Parker was objecting to in that review was “hu_mm_y.”
My own favoirite is:
Indian Summer
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!
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-your-favorite-dorothy-parker-quote/549467.md?page=2)