I used to get letters saying, 'I didn't know black children and white children were the same.'

If you take 12 waters from the coconut - not the ones you buy in the store, although that's good - but the fresh coconuts, the little brown ones with the three eyes, if you take 12 of those within 24 hours, your blood will go back to the way it was when you were born.

Once we used to have to crank up our cars, now you can pop it on from inside your house. Everything has changed except how we get freedom.

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!

America is concerned more with the possibility of moon folks than the reality of hungry poor folks.

I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn't have what I wanted.

People keep telling me about the white race and the black race - and it really doesn't make sense. I played Miami, met a fellow two shades darker than me - and his name was Ginsberg! Took my place in two sit-in demonstrations - nobody knew the difference. The he tried for a third lunch counter and blew the whole bit ... asked for blintzes.