“Home was a place to be only when all other places were closed.”

We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn’t it either. I’m going to be an American Citizen. First-class.

Coconut milk is the only thing on this planet that comes identically to mother’s milk.

If all you can do is judge a person by their appearance because you don’t have the spirit to judge someone from within, you’re in trouble.

I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn’t have what I wanted.

I personally would say that the quickest way to wipe out a group of people is to put them on a soul food diet.

My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that’s never been explained.

Revolution ain’t nothing but an extent of evolution; Evolution is a fact of nature.

No kid in the world, no woman in the world should ever raise a hand against a no-good daddy. That’s already been taken care of: A Man Who Destroys His Own Home Shall Inherit the Wind.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

I used to get letters saying, ‘I didn’t know black children and white children were the same.’

Makes you wonder. When I left St. Louis, I was making five dollars a night. Now I’m getting $5,000 a week — for saying the same things out loud I used to say under my breath.

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We’re the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X.

The most difficult thing to get people to do is to accept the obvious.

They told me there was very little racial prejudice in Hawaii. Like a woman is just a little bit pregnant.

Being white is a job in America. You take that away, you better get the soldiers out.

My mother was the sweetest lady who ever lived on this planet, but if you tried to tell her that Jesus wasn’t a Christian, she would stomp you to death.

Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home.

Just as you maintain your home, your car, your garden, you should look after your greatest gift: your body.

I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.

There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home.

When I started the business, I hardly went home. I became very driven about work and about my career.

You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.

Your body is meant to be the safest place for you to live.

I am always going to have problems with the paparazzi. I have had two men outside my house for the last two years, which is frightening at times, but that is my life unfortunately.