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
That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote humorously highlights a woman's inability to refuse requests, regardless of her linguistic skills.
Dorothy Parker's quote points out the irony of someone being highly educated and skilled in many languages, yet lacking the ability to assertively decline requests. It reflects on the societal pressures and expectations often placed on women to be accommodating and helpful, poking fun at the contrast between her impressive talents and her vulnerability in social situations.
Themes
WomanLanguagesNoAssertivenessHumor
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about assertiveness training at a women's empowerment workshop.
More from Dorothy Parker
All quotes βMy 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 canβt write five words but that I change seven.
Dorothy ParkerRead
Similar quotes
This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.
Graham ChapmanRead
It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.
Jerome K. JeromeRead
Kiss. n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss".
Ambrose BierceRead
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time... I think I've forgotten this before.
Steven WrightRead
There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.
William ShakespeareRead
Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.
Stephen KingRead