Life doesn't give you all the practice races you need.

One chance is all you need.

If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard.

Every morning, just like in Alabama, I got up with the sun, ate my breakfast even before my mother and sisters and brothers, and went to school, winter, spring, and fall alike to run and jump and bend my body this way and that for Mr. Charles Riley.

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.

The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers - weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies.

For a time, at least, I was the most famous person in the entire world.