Humorous Quotes from
My Life and Other Unfinished Business
By Dolly Parton

It costs a lot to make a person look this cheap.

My daddy couldn’t afford to pay Dr. Thomas for delivering me, so he gave him a sack of cornmeal. I have often joked that I have been raking in the dough ever since.

We had two rooms and a path, and running water, if you were willing to run to get it.

If there’s one positive thing about being poor, it’s that it makes a person more creative. None of us kids ever had store-bought toys to play with when we were growing up.

I stopped in a small clearing as far as I could get from unfriendly bushes, and I thought for a minute or two. After some consideration, I came up with a plan: I cried.

None of us Partons had ever had any table manners. We would sit at the table and smack our food like a bunch of possums in a mulberry bush.

My brother Denver was mean. He’s my brother and I love him, and I wish I could say he was “high-strung” or “moody” or make some other excuse, but the fact is he was just plain mean.

This was one sweet-starved group of young’uns that would have agreed to have some of their less favorite body parts amputated tomorrow for the promise of chocolate candy today. Personally, I never cared that much for my left foot anyway.

I used to think that when I became a star, I would have candy and cakes and pies any time I felt like it. One need only look at the width of my butt in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas to know that I kept that promise to myself, at least for a while.

The worst thing about poverty is not the actual living of it, but the shame of it.

Snow has a way of making even a humble shack look magical and inviting.

I was the ultimate nightmare for a fundamentalist Christian out to save souls. I was a kid with her own opinions.

When I was twelve, those body parts that were destined to become my calling card in life and the reference point for many a joke by late-night talk-show hosts were already well in evidence.

I was so desperate to perform that on more than one occasion I sang for the chickens and the pigs and ducks. They didn’t applaud much, but with the aid of a little corn, they could be counted on to hang around for a while.

As the saying goes, “That’s the great thing about a sense of humor and a sex drive, you can't wait to share it with everybody else.”

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Favorite Long Quote/Extract
I don’t remember it myself, but my family swears there was a time when I was caught sucking a sow. I was about three years old, and we had a sow who had fewer pigs than she had nipples. Well, she was lying under a snowball bush with her litter and there was an empty place at dinner, so I fell in with the pigs and got myself a nice, plump teat. I was soon discovered and quickly removed from the sow with considerable embarrassment, more to my mama than to me. I don’t know that there’s anything to it, but some have suggested that there could be some connection between that incident and the way I developed later in life. If a sow’s objective is to fatten up her offspring, then she would have been mighty proud of the way her temporary one turned out.

When time came for my first show, I stood there backstage with my Uncle Bill, trying to breathe. It’s funny how when you’re nervous even normal bodily functions require worry and effort.

It used to be said of me that I was “smart enough to know everything and dumb enough to say it.”

If I were asked to create one sentence that involves God, music, and food as they all relate to my life it would have to be: Thank God I have been able to sing for a supper.

There I was, just my guitar and me. It was the second of these that got me into trouble.

Early next morning I boarded a Greyhound bus with my dreams, my old guitar, the songs I had written, and the rest of my belongings in a set of matching luggage – three paper bags from the same grocery store.

I thought he was really handsome in his tux, but you could tell by the look on his face it suited him like a sock on a rooster.

Johnny (Carson) got a huge laugh when he pretended to be fixated by my bosoms for a while and finally said, “I’d give a week’s pay to look under that shirt.”

I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.

I tried the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman water diet (you remember that one, where you run weight off trying to get to the bathroom).

The hardest exercise for most of us (fat people) is that one where we push our chairback from the dinner table.

Sometimes I think I have CRN disease – I think that stands for “Can’t Remember Nothing,” but I forget.

Our society takes great measures to ensure the privacy of serial killers being executed for their crimes, but someone who has the audacity to try to entertain the public is probed at like some kind of germ under a microscope.

Sandy (Prudden) was always a big joker. He sidled up to me and said, “Isn’t it amazing the way Kermit can sing like that with somebody’s hand up his ass.” Without missing a beat, I came back with, “Shoot, that ain’t nothin’. I did that for seven years on “The Porter Wagoner Show.’”

I do wear wigs. Someone once threatened to pull my hair, and I said, “Lord, some woman in Hong Kong will scream bloody murder.”

Everybody always wants to know, “How long does it take to do your hair?” How should I know? I’m never there.

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Favorite Long Quote/Extract
People have often asked me how we girls managed any privacy in a house with so many boys and no private rooms. It was difficult. We used to bathe with a washcloth from a pan of water. We would first start with our necks and faces and wash down as far as possible. Then we would wash the road dust from our feet and wash up as far as possible. Later, when the boys were out of the room, we would wash “possible.”

The big question in everybody’s mind is, “Have you had your breast worked on?” Let’s just say that some of Dr. Grossman’s work has been very uplifting. People were always saying to me, “Show me your boobs,” and I got tired of having to pull my skirt up to do it.

Love is something sent from Heaven to worry the hell out of you.

I love bald men. Just because you’ve lost your fuzz, don’t mean you ain’t a peach.

How poor were you really?
Well, I’ll put it this way. The ants used to bring back food they’d taken from us because they felt sorry for us.

My feet are small for the same reason my waist is small – things don’t grow in the shade.

Do you ever think you’ll get out of show business and just do God’s work? Well, God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.

Did you and Porter ever have sex?
Hundreds of times, but not with each other.

If you could tell teenagers one thing, what would it be?
I would say always act like it’s raining and wear your rubbers.

Have you ever considered suing the tabloids?
Yes, for printing lies about me in the middle of the magazine instead of on the cover.

How long was Porter in your life?
The same length he’s always been.

Have your ever had voice lessons?
No. My singing comes naturally. Do you honestly think somebody would teach a person to sing like this?

Have you ever been asked to pose nude?
Yes, I have agreed to pose for Penthouse on my hundredth birthday. Everybody is going to be sorry.