Anytime you see me with my arms around an old man, I'm holding him for the police.

Love is like playing checkers. You have to know which man to move.

[On turning down an invitation to appear for four minutes on the Ed Sullivan Show:] Honey, it takes Moms four minutes just to get on the stage.

It's no disgrace to be old. But damn if it isn't inconvenient.

Honey, that Totie Fields is one well-fed white woman. When that gal sits around the house, she sits around the house!

Black women, white women- all of them. I'm colorblind. I don't know the difference. I only know you're a human being and you're my children.

Anytime you see me with my arms around an old man, I'm holding him for the police.