«We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.»

«I like all the chairs to talk to one another and to the sofas and not those parlor-car arrangements that create two Siberias.»

«Yes, I heard my people singing!--in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews--and my soul was filled with their harmonies. Then, too, I heard these songs in the very sermons of my father, for in the Negro's speech there is much of the phrasing and rhythms of folk-song. The great, soaring gospels we love are merely sermons that are sung; and as we thrill to such gifted gospel singers as Mahalia Jackson, we hear the rhythmic eloquence of our preachers, so many of whom, like my father, are masters of poetic speech.»

«A piano store looks like a funeral parlor for music.»

«As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure»

«I dropped my pants in a tattoo parlor in Amsterdam. I woke up in a waterbed with this funky-looking dragon with a blue tongue on my hip. I realized I made a mistake, so a few months later I got a cross to cover it. When my pants hang low, it looks like I'm wearing a dagger!»

«PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.»

«Prince, a precept I'd leave for you, Coined in Eden, existing yet: Skirt the parlor, and shun the zoo, Women and elephants never forget»