I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That [affirmative action] programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race.

I love being around people who work with their hands, who do the hard things to keep our country going. They're just my kind of people.

The White House said today that Judge Clarence Thomas, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, had smoked marijuana while in college.

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.

I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that.