profound thoughts for the less than profound

DORTHY PARKER was a Jewish critic who was just trying to be cute and did so by overdosing on drugs and failing several suicide attempts. She was born in 1893 and died in 1967. Although she knocked on deaths door many times (and frequently banged on it with a hammer) she never lost her sense of humor. Even as she lay dying in an oxegyen tent, she asked if she could have a little flag for it.

"A list of authors who have made themselves most beloved and therefore, most comfortable financially, shows that it is our national joy to mistake for the first-rate, the fecund rate."

"All I say is, nobody has any business to go around looking like a horse and behaving as if it were all right. You don't catch horses going around looking like people, do you?"

"And I'll stay off Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds."

"Brevity is the soul of lingerie."

"By the time you say you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying."

"He lies below, correct in cypress wood,
And entertains the most exclusive worms."

"How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the nightlight. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things."

"I was fired from there, finally, for a lot of things, among them my insistence that the Immaculate Conception was spontaneous combustion."

"If all the young ladies who attended the Yale promenade dance were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised."

"It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard."

"I'm never going to be famous...I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more."

"Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses."

"Oh, don't worry about Alan...Alan will always land on somebody's feet."

"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."

"She ran the whole gamut of the emotions from A to B."

"Sorrow is tranquillity remembered in emotion."

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

"You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think."

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks."

"You know, she speaks eighteen languages. And she can't say 'No' in any of them."

If you have any people or quotes you would like to see added here, feel free to e-mail us.
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