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Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id734757188 two
There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.
id734756792 one
• Too fucking busy, and vice versa.
New highlights added 2026-05-13 at 9:50 AM
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The earliest instance of such a phrase was from a letter written by novelist Frank Norris prior to his death in 1902 (when Parker would have been 8 or 9 years old).
I write with great difficulty, but have managed somehow to accomplish 40 short stories (all published in fugitive fashion) and five novels within the last three years, and a lot of special unsigned articles. Believe my forte is the novel. Don’t like to write, but like having written. Hate the effort of driving pen from line to line, work only three hours a day, but work every day.
✏️ “I hate to write, but I love having written” is commonly but apparently incorrectly attributed to Dorothy Parker.
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