Happy Birthday, Dorothy Parker

[JackLuis]

‘Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat’: Happy birthday, Dorothy Parker

What every writer needs to internalize.

Monday is Dorothy Parker's 123rd birthday, and Twitter turned up to celebrate. As of 8 a.m. EDT, the famous writer's name was trending on the social media site, with dozens of users sharing their favorite Parker quotes and quips.

Parker, who was born Aug. 22, 1893, started her writing career as a teenager and before long worked for Vogue and Vanity Fair, according to the biography on the Dorothy Parker Society Website. In 1919, she helped organize the Algonquin Round Table, a regular meeting of New York City-based critics, and later, while traveling abroad, she met Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Parker continued to write short stories and reviews, often contributing to the New Yorker and even working in film, until her death in 1967.

"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

"I'm not a writer with a drinking problem, I'm a drinker with a writing problem."

"And if my heart be scarred and burned, / The safer, I, for all I learned."

"Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!"

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice."

 

[Tio_Narratore]

One of my favourites of her poems is...

One Perfect Rose

(and it even comes with notes on the literary devices, for those who aren't familiar with such).

And a favourite essay, one which I have my students read in order to truly appreciate sarcasm as a literary device...

Good Souls

 

[jehoram]

And who wouldn't love a woman who named her parakeet "Onan" because he spilled his seed upon the ground?

 

[Athalia]

And who wouldn't love a woman who named her parakeet "Onan" because he spilled his seed upon the ground?

This.