It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no.

We do not believe, had he been white, that he would be dead. And when we black folks say to America that we're not going to tolerate it, it's going to stop.

Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another.

I cannot sing, dance or act; what else would I be but a talk show host.

I'm about to start reading it again, because what good is a story you only want to read once?

You didn't think of angels as white or black. They were angels.