We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.

If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market.

I wouldn't mind paying taxes - if I knew they were going to a friendly country.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship.

When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps.

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X.

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.

Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.

In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country.

And we love to dance, especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede.

I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist.

We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn't it either. I'm going to be an American Citizen. First class.

Riches do not delight us so much with their possession, as torment us with their loss.

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you.

Coconut milk is the only thing on this planet that comes identically to mother's milk.

Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can't afford it.

I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi.

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

I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too.

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.

Love is very dangerous if you just have love and don't have the ability to be lovable.

My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that's never been explained.

Now here's what I'm saying: I've always believed that every other month we hear about compromisation of bank records, I think that's the CIA and the FBI. Now let me tell you why I'm saying this. I don't believe no insignificant pip-squeak is going to be able to pull this off month after month and we can't find out what's going on.

Once I realised the value of making people laugh, I got very good at it. Fast.

People with high blood pressure, diabetes - those are conditions brought about by life style. If you change the life style, those conditions will leave.

There is a limit on how much information you can keep bottled up.

There's a God force inside of you that gives you a will to live.

You hear entertainers all the time, saying, 'If I couldn't get paid for this, I'd do it for free.' When's the last time you ever heard a business person say, 'If I couldn't get paid for being chairman of British Petroleum, I'd do it for free'?

In most places in the country voting is looked upon as a right and a duty but in Chicago its a sport. In Chicago not only your vote counts but all kinds of other votes kids dead folks and so on.

The only good thing about the good old days is theyre gone.

The funniest jokes you know aren't from comics but relatives, friends - from your life. That's the funniest stuff.

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.