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.

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.

You got to die of something because if you die of nothing, they won't pay your insurance.

The jelly-bean eating thug says that national defense is important. But national defense starts at home.

I didn't realize, when I decided to be a comic, that a black person had never been allowed to stand flat-footed in America and talk to white folks. It never happened before.

Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.