“If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!”

I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.

Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.

Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’

God does not require us to achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.

Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it at which point they can become human too.

I don’t want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.

You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.

The proof that one truly believes is in action.

I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community,

I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.

We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.

Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.

Aaron is a very passionate, maniacal writer so the scripts really come from him, but he is very open to… y’know, we’ll plan ideas and we’ll certainly tussle about stuff when the script comes out.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren’t any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.

As I tell my daughter, when you want something in life – no matter how impossible it seems – you need to fight for it.

What happened to the men’s boxing is happening to the women’s boxing, but not all the time. Every now and then, you get some really great fights. It’s a money thing and how many people are going to buy that pay-per-view for the fights. The UFC is eventually going to go that way.

If you fight you won’t always win. But if you don’t fight you will always lose

When I am in form, my style is a little bit stubborn, almost brutal. Sometimes I feel a great spirit of fight which drives me on.

The problem was Mike Tyson always had trouble with bigger men.

And whereas women had to fight to find their way into the workforce, men are now fighting to reclaim their place in the family structure.