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

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.

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.