Execupundit points to a must-read 1956 Paris Review interview with Dorothy Parker.  So many lessons on life and work and humor. 

Just one taste:

INTERVIEWER

Your first job was on Vogue, wasn’t it? How did you go about getting hired, and why Vogue?

DOROTHY PARKER

After my father died there wasn’t any money. I had to work, you see, and Mr. Crowninshield, God rest his soul, paid twelve dollars for a small verse of mine and gave me a job at ten dollars a week. Well, I thought I was Edith Sitwell. I lived in a boarding house at 103rd and Broadway, paying eight dollars a week for my room and two meals, breakfast and dinner. Thorne Smith was there, and another man. We used to sit around in the evening and talk. There was no money, but, Jesus, we had fun.