We used to have a lot of fun. We never had any problems. We always ate. The fact that we didn't have steak? Who had steak?

It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close

It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere - one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.

I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn't a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.

People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you.

The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

Although I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.