“Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can’t afford it.”

If democracy is such a good thing, let’s have more of it.

It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn’t stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no.

And we love to dance, especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede.

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine off the market for six days, they’d have to bring out the tanks to control you.

When you’ve got something really good, you don’t have to force it on people. They will steal it!

I never thought I’d see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we were in Mississippi.

I wouldn’t mind paying taxes – if I knew they were going to a friendly country.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: ‘We don’t serve colored people here.’ I said: ‘that’s all right, I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.

Just being a Negro doesn’t qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.

Did you know that in New Orleans they still have brown bag parties? What’s that, you ask? You and I go to a party, and when we get to the door, there’s a brown bag hanging down from the ceiling, and if our skin is darker than the brown bag, we can’t go in.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.

There’s a God force inside of you that gives you a will to live.

If it wasn’t for Abe Lincoln, I’d still be on the open market.

It’s cool to be healthy.

People with high blood pressure, diabetes – those are conditions brought about by lifestyle. If you change the lifestyle, those conditions will leave.

Now some folks say that we should be glad for what we have. Tell me, would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?

Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms and no legs. The quick answer is that I have a choice. I can be angry about not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude.

Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seeker’s life- in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes.

It could have been worse. I could have been born black.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.

Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude.

Let us serve the world soulfully. The pay we will receive for our service will be in the currency of gratitude, God’s gratitude, God the only gratitude.