Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
“Tell me how you read and I'll tell you who you are.”
"The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" on the albums L. A. Woman (1971) and An American Prayer (1978)
“Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.”
Variant: Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are.
Source: Tears and Saints (1937)
Franny and Zooey (1961), Zooey (1957)
Context: I don't care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most sunburned-looking audience you can imagine. But I'll tell you a terrible secret — Are you listening to me? There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddam secret yet? And don't you know — listen to me, now — don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?... Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
“If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you what you are.”
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.”
Europe and Elsewhere. Corn Pone Opinions (1925)
“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
Source: Man and Crisis (1962), p. 94.
“Tell me what you see vanishing and I will tell you who you are”
