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.

Laughter is the best way to release tensions and fears.

My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that's never been explained.

In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country.

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!

Black folks tell their kids they have to be twice as good as a white person? Well, if I tell a child of mine that, or that they have to be careful - that this is what a cop would do if you do this - they think something is wrong with them. I tell them death is better.

Martin Luther King taught us all nonviolence. I was told to extend nonviolence to the mother and her calf.