What's your favorite Dorothy Parker quote?

Her review of the Christopher Isherwood play “I Am a Camera” - “No Leica.”

Similarly, Walter Kerr reviewed John Van Druten’s 1951 play “I am a Camera” with “Me no Leica.” See for example http://www.walterkerrtheatre.com/biography.php.

It was actually “One square foot less would have constituted adultry.”

I will grant you that the majority of the citations seem to favor Kerr as the author of the review, though Parker is sometimes mentioned also, as well as Goodman Ace. You are correct in stating that Van Druten authored the play. Isherwood authored The Berlin Stories, one of which was the source of the title and main character, Sally Bowles.

Thank you denquixote. “I am a Camera” is from the second paragraph of Isherwood’s “A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)”:

Sally Bowles is in “Sally Bowles” and “The Landauers” (and any others?), per the A new Directions Paperbook edition of The Berlin Stories.

I can easily believe that more than person said “Me no Leica” before Kerr included it in his December 31, 1951, review in the New York Herald Tribune. From Dorothy’s “Summary”…

I love them all, but I guess my favorite is revealed under the duress of great frustration, when I can be heard to mutter under my breath “nooses give…”

The Portable Curmudgeon (compiled by Jon Winokur) quotes her telling her alcoholic husband, “You don’t want to be the town drunk Eddie. Not in Manhattan”.

I’m from a small town, and I always found this a delightful twist on fabled New York supremacy. If it’s true that “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere”, then the town drunk would make Otis of Mayberry look temperate.

Another unsourced apocryphal quote which she almost certainly didn’t utter.

It is legit, but the first line is actually “Oh life is a glorious cycle of song”, which I rather prefer. :slight_smile:

If I don’t drive around the park
I’m pretty sure to make my mark
If I’m in bed each night by ten
I may get back my looks again
If I abstain from fun and such
I’ll probably amount to much
But I shall stay the way I am
Because I do not give a damn