White folks are the luckiest people: Finally a black president and he's a behaved one. Went to the best schools, best colleges, never raises his voice. I ran for president in 1968. I tell (audiences) if I won, I would have dug up the Rose Garden and planted watermelon!

Revolution ain't nothing but an extent of evolution; Evolution is a fact of nature. So when old folks tell me that they don't understand hip hop and the music is too loud, well I guess it means you're not supposed to be in there.

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

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.

Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another.

America has the mightiest military on the planet, and they didn't get there with entertainers.

I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too.