
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
As quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 322.
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”
“I tell ya, my wife's a lousy cook. After dinner, I don't brush my teeth. I count them.”
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 18
“No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
Source: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings
Context: I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK, November 2, 1971
1970s
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 215.