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

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.

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.

The perfect date for me would be staying at home, making a big picnic in bed, eating Wotsits and cookies while watching cable TV.

You can’t live with no passion, no zeal: get up, go to work, come home, do it all again. That flame won’t grow without you stirring it.

More than anything else, I want the folks back at home to think right of me.

Make me feel at home, if you really care, scratch my back and run your pretty fingers through my hair.

It’s always good to come back home.

It’s always good to come back home.

Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things.

Any place I hang my head is home.