If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

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!

The United States is the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet.

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

I chose to be an agitator. And there's one interesting thing about being an agitator - and I tell people - the next time you put your underwear in the washing machine, take the agitator out, and all you're going to end up with is some dirty, wet drawers.

I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi.