When I went south in the 1960s, I knew I could die. If I went down there and did what I did up in Chicago and made all of those hatin' white folks laugh, then I would have been defeated.

Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion?

The only thing I like about St. Louis is it has the best zoo in America, in Forest Park. Washington University is next door to the zoo. Animals get out, they're going to eat white people before they get to the ghetto!

No being should be killed. No being should be unloved.

America is 5 percent of the world's population and consumes 96 percent of the world's hard drugs.

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

I would never teach a child of mine to be kind to a cop who would shoot you in the back of the head. I would never have that conversation because children don't hear what you mean, they hear what you say.