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Who really said it

I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia

Parker’s joke — but the continents were Asia and Africa Dorothy Parker 1893–1967 · American poet, critic and short-story writer
Right person, drifted wording — and even the person is credited only on the earliest available citation. In copyright

The earliest known printing is a syndicated column by Leonard Lyons ↗, carried in the Dallas Morning News of 15 October 1956, and it reads: “Dorothy Parker said: I once was the toast of two continents, Asia and Africa.” Both of those are continents, which is the point — the “Greenland and Australia” form, in which one of the two is an island, does not appear until around 1970. Quote Investigator ↗ gives Parker the credit “for now” because she is named in that first citation, while noting that Bennett Cerf ↗ believed Frank Sullivan ↗ said it first.

Last verified 4 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia” Dorothy Parker, as quoted by Leonard Lyons, 1956. The familiar "Greenland and Australia" version is a later reshaping. Via quotle.info · Verbatim: “I once was the toast of two continents, Asia and Africa.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright. A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the themes of success and humility. Theme: "I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Earliest documented printing
15 October 1956
Printed in
Leonard Lyons, “Heard in New York,” Dallas Morning News, p. 15, col. 3
Wording there
“two continents, Asia and Africa” — not Greenland and Australia
Greenland/Australia form
By 1970, in John Keats’s Parker biography

Dorothy Parker said: “I once was the toast of two continents, Asia and Africa.”

That is Quote Investigator’s transcription ↗ of the 1956 Lyons column, the earliest printing located. The version this page is titled for — “Greenland and Australia” — is a later reshaping, and it is the reshaping that made the joke famous, so we keep it as the headline while recording what the source actually says.

Quote Investigator: "I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia"

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s article ↗ is the anchor. It identifies the earliest instance as Leonard Lyons’s column in the Dallas Morning News, 15 October 1956, in the “Asia and Africa” wording, and states that “since Parker is mentioned in the first cite she receives the credit for now.”
  • The joke works by twisting a stock phrase. QI shows “the toast of two continents” in its ordinary sense in a 1933 newspaper tribute to the jockey Tod Sloan, famous in both America and Britain. Parker’s version keeps the grammar and swaps in two continents nobody tours — the deflation is the whole gag.
  • The mutation is documented, not inferred. QI records the “Greenland and Australia” form appearing by 1970 in John Keats’s biography You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker. Greenland is not a continent, which is the objection that prompted the original enquiry to QI — and QI’s answer is that the funnier, wronger version is the one that survived.
  • The credit is not secure even for Parker. In a 1971 column Bennett Cerf ↗ wrote that both Robert Benchley ↗ and Parker had been credited with the line, “but I think it was Frank Sullivan ↗ who said it first.” All three sat at the Algonquin Round Table ↗ in the 1920s, yet the earliest citation anyone has found is from the 1950s — a thirty-year gap that no source closes.
In copyright

The earliest documented printing is a 1956 syndicated newspaper column, and the familiar wording is first recorded in a 1970 book. Both are well after 1930, so no public-domain status is asserted here. We have not established the renewal status of the 1956 column. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What is actually wrong here

Nobody is falsely credited on this one — the earliest source really does name Parker. What has gone wrong is the sentence itself, plus a genuine uncertainty about the 1920s that no citation reaches back far enough to settle.

“Greenland and Australia” Later variant

The 1956 printing transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ reads “Asia and Africa.” The Greenland/Australia form is not recorded until about 1970. It is the better joke and the worse geography, and it is the one that survived.

Frank Sullivan Cerf’s guess

In 1971 Bennett Cerf ↗ wrote that Benchley and Parker had both been credited “but I think it was Frank Sullivan ↗ who said it first.” QI records this without resolving it; neither do we.

The 1920s Algonquin story Unattested

The line is usually told as Round Table lore, but the earliest citation anyone has produced is from 1956 — roughly thirty years after the fact. That gap is the reason this page is filed as disputed rather than verified.

Parker is the best-supported author and the words are not quite hers: she named Asia and Africa, and someone else swapped in Greenland and Australia — see Quote Investigator’s trail ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

“The toast of two continents” was press-agent boilerplate for a performer who had conquered both America and Europe. Parker’s joke is a demolition of that phrase: keep the format, keep the boast, and fill it with two places that confer no glamour whatsoever.

Which two places is a matter of taste, and taste has revised the line. Asia and Africa are continents and the sentence is literally correct; Greenland and Australia are funnier because one of them is not a continent at all. The version that spread is the one that is wrong on purpose — or wrong by accident, and kept because it landed better.

The version that spread is the one that is wrong on purpose.

Read the full story

It is worth being clear about what this page is and is not claiming. It is not claiming Parker never made this joke; the earliest source we have says she did. It is claiming that the exact sentence in the headline is not the sentence anyone recorded her saying, and that the thirty-year gap between the Algonquin years and the first citation leaves real room for Bennett Cerf’s alternative.

That is why the page is filed as disputed while still crediting Parker. The alternative — printing “Greenland and Australia” under her name as a verified quotation — would assert a wording no source supports, which is precisely the error this site exists to correct.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Success Humility

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator — this quipquoteinvestigator.com

The investigation this page defers to: the 1956 "Asia and Africa" citation, the 1970 mutation, and Cerf’s doubt about who said it first.
Wikipedia — Dorothy Parkeren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the writer credited on the earliest available citation (1893–1967).
Wikiquote — Dorothy Parkeren.wikiquote.org

Parker’s sourced quotation page. It does not carry this line — noted because that absence is part of why the record stays hedged.
Wikipedia — Leonard Lyonsen.wikipedia.org

The syndicated columnist whose 1956 "Heard in New York" is the earliest known printing.
Wikipedia — Frank Sullivanen.wikipedia.org

The humorist Bennett Cerf believed originated the line.
Wikipedia — Algonquin Round Tableen.wikipedia.org

The 1920s circle that included Parker, Robert Benchley and Frank Sullivan — all three credited with this joke at some point.

The author

About Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

1893–1967 · American poet, critic and short-story writer

Dorothy Parker (born Dorothy Rothschild, 22 August 1893 – 7 June 1967) was an American poet, critic and short-story writer and a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Self-deprecation was as much her register as the put-down, and a joke about being famous in exactly the wrong places is entirely in character. That same reputation is why so many unsourced wisecracks end up on her — and why Wikiquote heads her Misattributed section ↗ with a standing warning about it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The earliest documented source (Chicago)

Lyons, Leonard. “Heard in New York: Turntables Give Welles a Turn.” Dallas Morning News, 15 October 1956, p. 15, col. 3. Earliest documented printing per Quote Investigator, in the wording “I once was the toast of two continents, Asia and Africa.” The “Greenland and Australia” form is first recorded in John Keats, You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I Was the Toast of Two Continents: Greenland and Australia’?” Last verified 4 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-was-the-toast-of-two-continents-greenland-and-australia/

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