There's life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.
Dorothy ParkerRead
You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously expresses the notion of wanting freedom over obligations in work and life.
Dorothy Parker uses wit to convey her feelings about the pressures of work and the loss of personal time. Through a series of exaggerated job descriptions, she illustrates the absurdity of highly specialized roles while simultaneously revealing her desire to escape from the burdens of literary critique that inhibit her true passion for reading. The humor serves to highlight the conflict between responsibility and personal desire, reflecting a broader commentary on the nature of work and creativity.
Themes
WorkLiteratureFreedomHumorReading
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about finding passion in work.
More from Dorothy Parker
All quotes →My land is bare of chattering folk; / the clouds are low along the ridges, / and sweet's the air with curly smoke / from all my burning bridges.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Prince or commoner, tenor or bass, Painter or plumber or never-do-well, Do me a favor and shut your face - Poets alone should kiss and tell.
Dorothy ParkerRead
They say of me, and so they should, It's doubtful if I come to good. I see acquaintances and friends Accumulating dividends And making enviable names In science, art and parlor games. But I, despite expert advice, Keep doing things I think are nice, And though to good I never come Inseparable my nose and thumb.
Dorothy ParkerRead
It is that word 'hunny,' my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.
Dorothy ParkerRead
I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Similar quotes
There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.
Edith WhartonRead
I think I wear my hypocrisy on my sleeve. I would never say I'm not a complete hypocrite.
Bo BurnhamRead
The Welsh are all actors. It's only the bad ones who become professional.
Richard BurtonRead
I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
Anne LamottRead
Comedy needs to happen naturally and be in touch with the character. When you see that guy in your office that everybody laughs at, he doesn't think he's funny. He's just being him, and that's the joke.
Terry CrewsRead
I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.
Steve MartinRead