“When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship.”

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.

When I first broke through, there was only NBC, CBS and ABC, and they had news in the morning and in the evening – there wasn’t no 24-hour news.

The only good thing about the good old days is they’re gone.

Every door of racial prejudice I can kick down, is one less door that my children have to kick down.

America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don’t misuse a household pet.

When you shoot right and truth and justice down, the more right and truth and justice will rise up.

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.

I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water I look at the obituaries every morning and ain’t nobody listed but you eaters.

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

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

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced ‘mirage’.

Anyone who is funny and doesn’t take herself to seriously is attractive to me

Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren’t going to get rid of me that way.

Funny how it kept hitting me, like each new thing was a surprise. When was I going to stop being surprised?

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

Women are like cars: we all want a Ferrari, sometimes want a pickup truck, and end up with a station wagon.

Ninety percent of people support background checks. Which means even people who can’t pass a background check support background checks.

I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren’t funny.