Frank Sullivan’s 1928 book Innocent Bystanding quotes a version, “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close,” as one of the mottoes students painted on their slickers. Newspapers were already printing the joke in 1925, and Quote Investigator ↗ concludes that its creator was anonymous. The familiar “you’ve come too close” wording comes from Dorothy Parker’s proposed epitaph, as Lillian Hellman reported it.
“If You Can Read This, You've Come Too Close” Anonymous 1920s motoring slogan (“If you can read this you are too darn close,” The Sunday Oregonian, Jan. 11, 1925); quoted by Frank Sullivan, Innocent Bystanding (1928), and later proposed by Dorothy Parker as her epitaph, per Lillian Hellman (1968–69).
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Frank Sullivan. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? The original author of this line is unknown — it began as an anonymous 1920s car slogan — so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an anonymous line; just don’t credit it to Frank Sullivan, and if you name Dorothy Parker, say she proposed it as her epitaph.
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In context
Evoking the themes of simplicity and freedom. Theme: "If You Can Read This, You've Come Too Close". 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 "If You Can Read This, You've Come Too Close". 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
What Frank Sullivan actually wrote
Work
Innocent Bystanding
Author
Frank Sullivan
Published
Horace Liveright, New York · first printing October 1928
Section
“Outfitting the College Student,” pp. 41–42
The student must also be equipped with a yellow slicker painted with various mottoes and designs. The oilskin coat should be bright yellow. It is considered au fait to have the various female friends of the youth place their autographs on the coat. Legends such as “Excuse My Dust” or “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close” should be painted on the back, with any mural or landscape designs that occur to the boy’s fancy.
pp. 41–42
Sullivan lists the line as a stock “legend” already in use, next to “Excuse My Dust.” He is joking about a fad and does not claim to have coined the line. His wording (“You Are Too Damn Close”) also differs from the popular “you’ve come too close.”
January 1925.The Sunday Oregonian reports a spare-tire cover reading “If you can read this you are too darn close,” as documented by Quote Investigator ↗.
October 1928. Frank Sullivan’s Innocent Bystanding names “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close” as a motto painted on students’ slickers (scan, pp. 41–42 ↗).
July 1968. An Esquire profile of Dorothy Parker reports that Lillian Hellman said at Parker’s funeral that Parker wanted her tombstone to read “If you can read this, you’ve come too close” (Quote Investigator ↗).
1969. Hellman repeats the story in her memoir An Unfinished Woman, p. 215, quoting Parker: “Lilly, promise me that my gravestone will carry only these words…” (Quote Investigator ↗).
The line is an anonymous slogan with no identifiable author, so quotle.info asserts no copyright status for it. Sullivan’s Innocent Bystanding was first published in 1928, before 1931, so the book is public domain in the US. But Sullivan quoted the slogan; he did not write it.
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
Who gets the credit, and why
The joke started as a warning to drivers following too closely. Over the decades it was pinned on the writers who quoted or reused it.
✕
Coined it?Frank Sullivan Quoted, not coined
His 1928 humor book lists “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close” as one of the mottoes college students painted on yellow slickers (scan, pp. 41–42 ↗). Quote Investigator ↗ cites newspaper uses from 1925, before his book appeared.
~
The popular wordingDorothy Parker Epitaph, not origin
Lillian Hellman said Parker wanted her gravestone to read “If you can read this, you’ve come too close” (Esquire, 1968; An Unfinished Woman, 1969). Quote Investigator ↗ thinks Parker probably did suggest it, but says the joke was already in circulation. Parker also turned the car slogan “Excuse My Dust” ↗ into an epitaph.
~
Source of the Parker storyLillian Hellman Messenger
The Parker attribution traces chiefly to Hellman, Parker’s friend and literary executor, who quoted the line at Parker’s funeral and in her memoir, as Quote Investigator ↗ documents. John Keats’s 1970 biography gives a similar anecdote of Parker amusing Robert Benchley with made-up epitaphs.
✓The line began as an anonymous motoring joke on spare-tire covers and Model T “Lizzie labels” in the 1920s. Sullivan quoted it and Parker reused it, but neither created it (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
From tire cover to tombstone
The Model T had no bumpers, and early cars often carried a cover over the spare tire on the back. A message in letters too small to read lured the next driver closer, and the punchline told him he had come too close. Quote Investigator ↗ follows the joke from cars to college coats, to 1950s newspaper columns about flying saucers and the Kinsey Reports, and finally to the graveyard.
Dorothy Parker’s version works because it changes the meaning of the line. A warning to a tailgater becomes a warning to a mourner reading a headstone. That twist is why her name stuck to the joke, even though the words were older than her use of them.
Legends such as “Excuse My Dust” or “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close” should be painted on the back.
Other wordings on record
1925, Rockford, Illinois: “If you can see this you are too darned close for comfort.” 1931, Botkin’s American Speech list: “If you are close enough to read this you are too (damn) close.” 1970, John Keats’s Parker biography You Might as Well Live: “If you can read this, you are standing too close.” All three are transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗.
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The author
About Anonymous
AN
Anonymous
1920s · Spare-tire cover and Model T slogan, origin unknown
No one knows who first lettered this warning in tiny print on the back of a car. In January 1925 The Sunday Oregonian reported a spare-tire cover seen in Washington, Pennsylvania, that read “If you can read this you are too darn close.” In 1931 B. A. Botkin’s American Speech anthology of Model T “Lizzie labels” recorded several variants that students remembered. The joke later turned up on college slickers, in newspaper columns, and finally as a proposed epitaph.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Frank Sullivan, Innocent Bystanding (New York: Horace Liveright, 1928), 41–42, quoting the slogan “If You Can Read This You Are Too Damn Close” as one already in use; for anonymous 1925 newspaper sightings and the Parker epitaph, see Garson O’Toole, “If You Can Read This, You’ve Come Too Close,” Quote Investigator, October 22, 2014.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If You Can Read This, You've Come Too Close’?” Last verified 1 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-can-read-this-youve-come-too-close/