QUOTES:

• Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.
  (This is probably her most famous quote.)
• They sicken of the calm, who know the storm.
• “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.” (This is the one that Rory told me, drunk. It’s a pun — “horticulture,” which is the study of plants =”whore to culture.” The actual phrase is “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” This was Parker’s answer when asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence?)
• “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone”
• If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
• Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
• This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.
• Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.
• She looks like something that would eat its young.
• The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
• I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be a darling at it.
• Mr. B and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.
• Authors and actors and artists and such – Never know nothing, and never know much.
• I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.
• That would be a good thing for them to carve on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
• 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.
• That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say No in any of them.
• (To an actor who kept talking of his ’schedule’ using the British pronunciation) If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you’re full of skit.
• I don’t do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.
• “Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough.” (The real phrase is “diamond in the rough” — a rhinestone is a cheap imitation glass diamond.)
• I dream of a rural life – raising cheques.
• I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.
• I require only three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
• The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
• If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.

CONVERSATIONAL EXCHANGES:

• Hopkins : “Don’t you think she ought to wear a brassiere in this scene?” Dorothy : “God. No. You’ve got to have something in the show that moves.”
• Ilka Chase : “Not only was Clare (Booth) loyal to her friends she was very kind to her inferiors. Dorothy : “And where does she find them ?”
• Frank Case (Manager of Hotel where she was staying) “Do you have a gentleman in your room?” Dorothy : “Just a minute. I’ll ask him.”

REVIEWS:

• This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. (About Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”)
• She delivered a striking performance that ran the gamut of emotions, from A to B. (About Katharine Hepburn’s performance in the Broadway play “The Lake.”)
• This book of essays … has all the depth and glitter of a worn dime.
• This must be a gift book. That is to say, a book which you wouldn’t take on any other terms.