Listen, we've got one little ol' black president, and white folks are upset, but they've had 43.

A new broom can sweep the floor, but an old broom knows where the dirt is.

People don't want to hear the truth, they never do. They wanna live in some kind of fantasy. And then when they get caught up in it, they start being in denial because they don't want to be wrong.

I have nothing to do with racism in America; it was here when I got here.

We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real mad at them, I call them graham crackers.

If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they're not happy.

People in America worship money, and a white man's face on a green piece of paper does not make me wealthy. My health makes me wealthy. I used to work at a hospital, so I know the real deal.

White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that.

Handshaking means, 'I don't have a weapon.'

If you have money and you have fame, but you don't have any confidence in your blackness, then it's all for nothing.

You can't pick when you're touched. You can't pick the time. It just is. It's the reality. What it is, is. I can't change the past. I can only deal with the present and the future.

Crying will achieve nothing. Only action will.

If she come, I be happy. If she don't, I be content.

The old farm roads a four lane that leads to the mall, and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall.

It might be a huge hit, it might not; but you learn something doing it.

Hospitality is simply love on the loose.

It is much more difficult to live for nonviolence than to die for it.

The unlived life is not worth examining.

I asked Secretary [Robert] Gates, what did they get in return for giving up the nuclear shield of Poland and the Czech Republic? And you know what his answer was? Nada. They got nothing.

The true measure of greatness of a human being is their ability to express love in relationship.

I highly recommend worrying. It is much more effective than dieting.