I'm not trying to get power over white. I'm involved in a freedom struggle. Not a power struggle.

Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing

I just can't see myself with a man on the ropes and just to prove how bad I am - and I see in his eyes, his head, he's hopeless - and I'm just deliberately hitting. I don't do that.

I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here." I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em." But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.

I'm proud, and Islam did it. And after these things that I heard in church, a preacher and watching this and that, I knew something was wrong but I couldn't pinpoint it.

Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

Miss America was always white. All the beautiful brown women in America, beautiful sun tans, beautiful shapes, all types of complexions, but she always was white.And Miss World was always white, and Miss Universe was always white.And the angel fruit cake was the white cake and the devil food cake was the chocolate cake.I said, 'Momma, why is everything white?' I always wondered. And the President lived in the White House.