“He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.”

“You can always tell how a man will treat his wife by the way he treats his mother.”

“The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.”

“Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed,
Nary a curse cursed he,
But moved in his House. With his dark little wife,
And his dark little children three.”

“Tell me I'm a sinner I got news for you
I spoke to God this morning and he don't like you
You telling all the people the original sin
He says he knows you better that you'll ever know him”

“If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.”

“Girl, next time he wants to know
What your problem is
Next time he wants to know
Where the anger comes from
Just tell him this time the problem's his
Tell him the anger just comes
It just comes.”

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

“He'll never fall in love
He swears, as he runs his fingers through his hair.
I'm laughing 'cause I hope he's wrong.
And I don't think it ever crossed his mind.
He tells a joke, I fake a smile
That I know all his favorite songs.”

“He who flatters a man is his enemy. he who tells him of his faults is his maker.”