Dorothy Parker was an American poet, literary critic and writer of fiction, plays and screenplays based in New York; she was known for her caustic wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works published in magazines, such as The New Yorker, and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.

There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. 

Interview with “The Paris Review,” 1956

 

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. 

“The New Yorker,” 1929

 

Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart. 

“The New Yorker,” 1928

 

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires. 

Quoted in “Dorothy Parker: In Her Own Words,” 2004

 

You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think. 

Parker’s response when asked to use the word “horticulture” in a sentence during a game

 

Four be the things I’d been better without: / Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. 

“Inventory,” 1937

 

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. 

Widely attributed to Parker, though the origin is unknown

 

They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. 

“New York World,” 1928

 

Scratch a lover, and find a foe. 

“Ballade of a Great Weariness,” 1937

 

Excuse my dust. 

Another suggested epitaph for herself, “Vanity Fair,” 1925

 

No man goes before his time — unless the boss leaves early.
Groucho Marx

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
Dave Barry

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Jerome K. Jerome

What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.
Phyllis Diller

Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties.
Doug Larson

I guess I’ve been working so hard, I forgot what it’s like to be hardly working.
Michael Scott (Steve Carell) in “The Office”

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive. 

Edith Wharton

 

Stuckness shouldn’t be avoided. It’s the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. 

Robert M. Pirsig

 

I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul. 

William Ernest Henley

 

Dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change. 

Shonda Rhimes

 

True life is lived when tiny changes occur. 

Leo Tolstoy

 

People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of. 

Paulo Coelho

 

We’ve always done it this way” is not a good enough reason to keep doing it if it isn’t working. When an otherwise smart habit or ritual loses its potency and you continue doing it, you’re in a rut. 

Twyla Tharp

 

Things may get a little odd at times, but they work out. You don’t have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them. 

Benjamin Hoff

 

Whatever you want to accomplish, stop overthinking it. You don’t need to have it all together. You just need to get on with it. You change your life by doing, not by thinking about doing. 

Gary John Bishop

 

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. 

Samuel Beckett

 

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. 

Leo Tolstoy 

Murphy, a furniture dealer from Dublin, decided to expand his store’s furniture line by traveling to Paris to find new items.

Upon arriving in Paris, he visited manufacturers and selected a line he believed would be popular in his home country. To celebrate his acquisition, he decided to treat himself to a glass of wine at a small bistro.

As he savored his wine, he noticed the bistro was quite crowded, and the only vacant seat at his table was the one across from him.

Before long, a beautiful young Parisian girl approached his table. She spoke French to him, which he couldn’t understand. He motioned to the vacant chair and invited her to sit down.

He tried speaking to her in English, but she didn’t speak his language. After a few minutes of trying to communicate, he grabbed a napkin and drew a picture of a wine glass. She nodded, so he ordered a glass of wine for her.

They sat together at the table for a while, and then he took another napkin and drew a picture of a plate with food on it. She nodded again, and they left the bistro, finding a quiet cafe with a small group playing romantic music.

They ordered dinner, and then he took another napkin and drew a picture of a couple dancing. She nodded, and they got up to dance. They danced until the cafe closed and the band packed up.

Back at their table, the young lady took a napkin and drew a picture of a four-poster bed.

To this day, Murphy has no idea how she figured out he was in the furniture business!

Stagecoach travel in the American West wasn’t just a rugged adventure—it also came with a class system that determined how much comfort (or hardship) a passenger could expect. Some stage lines offered three classes of tickets. First-class passengers remained seated for the entire journey, spared from the more strenuous demands of travel. Second-class ticket holders, however, were expected to disembark and walk during steep climbs. Third-class passengers endured the harshest experience, often walking—and even helping to push—the coach uphill.

The terrain itself could be brutal. One of the most infamous stretches was the sand dunes west of Yuma in the Arizona Territory. Coaches couldn’t make it through the soft ground, so passengers had to dismount and ride mules across the desert—earning the colorful nickname “Jackass Mail.” It was dusty, exhausting, and often dangerous, but for many, it was the only way west. These journeys tested endurance, but they also brought travelers closer to the raw, untamed heart of the frontier.

Whatever their class of ticket, passengers on coaches like the one departing Deadwood, Dakota Territory, around 1880 faced an unforgiving journey. Weather, rough roads, bandits, and fatigue were constant companions. Yet stagecoaches were a vital thread in the fabric of western expansion—linking isolated towns, delivering news and mail, and carrying hopeful pioneers toward new beginnings.

Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis in 1872

Nicollet Avenue at night at Christmas, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1937 from Hennepin History Museum.

Streetcar in Minneapolis in 1954 – Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

In 1892, four Texas Rangers stood still just long enough to be captured in a rare and haunting photograph—but what if this moment wasn’t as simple as it seems? You won’t believe what historians have recently uncovered about this image. Their faces are stoic, their gear rugged, their mission supposedly just—but there’s something suspicious in the way they look at the camera, as if they knew this photo would survive long after the truth was buried.

This wasn’t just another day on the frontier. At a time when the Wild West was being tamed and lawlessness was being rewritten by those with power, these four men rode into a chapter of history drenched in secrets. Who were they really protecting? And who decided what justice looked like? The deeper you look into their eyes, the more questions emerge—questions about hidden agendas, vanished enemies, and a justice system written in gunpowder and grit.

Preserved by the Institute of Texan Cultures, this mysterious image has reemerged—and not everyone’s happy about it. Why now? What secrets does it threaten to expose? Some say this photo holds the key to a truth long kept silent by dusty archives and selective memory. Scroll carefully… because once you start pulling on this thread, the entire story of the Texas Rangers might begin to unravel.