“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”

“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.”

“Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.”

“I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.”

“Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop--you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.”

“I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.”

“Perseverance... keeps honor bright: to have done, is to hang quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail in monumental mockery.”

“...lest too light winning make the prize light.”