Happy birthday to Dorothy Parker

Interior

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat,
And set in decorous lines,
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.

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6 Responses to Happy birthday to Dorothy Parker

  1. Ron says:

    My favorite Parker one-liner is when a drunk young man put his head under her dress at a party she looked down and said, “Snort twice if you find truffles.”

  2. red says:

    I also like her review of Katherine Hepburn’s acting in a Broadway show: “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

    Hepburn completely agreed with Parker, by the way. She knew who she was.

  3. Mr. Bingley says:

    My favorite was her ditty about the joys/perils of martinis:

    I love a good martini
    But only two at the most
    After three I’m under the table
    After four I’m under the host

  4. Stevie says:

    Dorothy Parker was friends with Nora Ephron’s parents. In “Crazy Salad,” Nora Ephron wrote a piece about wanting to grow up to be Dorothy Parker, but comes to the conclusion that she no longer wants to be the funny, ascerbic lone woman at a table full of men. However, she recounts a Parkerism that happened in her parents’ home: apparently there was an argument about how to spell the word “curry.” So Nora’s mother retrieved a bottle of Crosse & Blackwell’s chutney from the refrigerator, in order to point out how curry was spelled on the label. Staring at the bottle for a few seconds, Parker said, “Well, look how they spell crosse!”

  5. red says:

    stevie – that’s awesome!!

    Yes … I’ve been the lone woman at a table of men. It’s a blast. But … that whole “lone woman” thing gets reaallllly old!

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