I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.
Jackie RobinsonNot many people know this about me, but I’m a natural blonde. My hair went from light blonde naturally to a darker kind of blonde. My mother dyed my hair dark when I was a child, as I loved the look then. So I’m basically a natural blonde.
Angelina JolieThe only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.
BonoWe who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don’t want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don’t want to live with the white man; that’s all.
Muhammad AliDevon holds a special place in my heart. As a child, I normally went on holiday to Bantham and have lots of happy memories from my time there. I used to catch sand eels in the early morning and go fishing for bass throughout the day. I remember a gull taking my bait.
Richard BransonI do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years, we had to grow and raise all of our food, even our animals. And I remember in my early life, we didn’t even have electricity. So it was very, very hard times then.
Dolly PartonI do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.
Nelson MandelaWhen I was seven or eight years old, I began to read the science-fiction magazines that were brought by guests into my grandparents‘ boarding house in Waukegan, Illinois. Those were the years when Hugo Gernsback was publishing ‚Amazing Stories,‘ with vivid, appallingly imaginative cover paintings that fed my hungry imagination.
Ray BradburyEveryone my age probably grew up listening to the ‚perreos‘ of Plan B.
Bad BunnyI never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.
Dave GrohlWhen I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.
The WeekndI know when I grew up, it was, if it was daylight outside, get outside. Well, now, with the technological age of computers and everything, everyone’s inside virtually going everywhere they want to go, virtually having relationships, virtually traveling across the neighborhood, virtually going to that island.
Matthew McConaugheyWhen I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa, and every payday she’d pay a little toward the purchase.
Robert KiyosakiAt the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.
Lady GagaYeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.
EminemAs far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.
Maya AngelouI was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.
Margaret AtwoodThe vibe on ‚Starboy‘ comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.
The WeekndI’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.
Denzel WashingtonThe Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.
Martin Luther King, Jr.My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.
Jackie RobinsonIn so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
Maya AngelouI remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.
BonoBy 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.
Noam ChomskyEducation is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
James BaldwinI never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.
Dave GrohlThe first story I finished was when I was six years old.
J. K. RowlingI always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.
Taylor SwiftI was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house.
J. ColeHappy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
Charles DickensMost of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.
Paulo CoelhoI think it speaks of all women having those few special things that make them feel feminine. And so when I was a little girl, I would associate Guerlain with that.
Angelina JolieWhen I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.
Richard BransonI am proud to have been born in Iowa. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, it was a place of adventure and daily discoveries – the wonder of the growing crops, the excitements of the harvest, the journeys to the woods for nuts and hunting, the joys of snowy winters, the comfort of the family fireside, of good food and tender care.
Herbert HooverNo race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
Booker T. WashingtonIn my heart, I’m just a kid from the council houses. I can remember the old cottage and my dad coming round with the tin bath. I’m not a rich man.
Terry PratchettI did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.
Ariana GrandeWhen I was 8 years old, I saw ‚Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ in Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked out of there and was so inspired. I loved the movie, and I knew I wanted to be that guy.
Dwayne JohnsonYou’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.
Dr. SeussIt would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.
Jackie RobinsonI remember when my mother, Shyamala Harris, bought our first home. I was thirteen. She was so proud, and my sister and I were so excited. Millions of Americans know that feeling of walking through the front door of their own home for the first time – the feeling of reaching for opportunity and finding it.
Kamala HarrisI’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.
Taylor SwiftEven when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.
Conor McGregorThere is no scriptural basis for segregation.
Billy GrahamI raced with my brother from when I started to 2014 when I finished karting.
Lando NorrisMy grandmother used to embarrass me more, when she would pick me up from school wearing a big fuzzy hat. I didn’t like that.
Adam SandlerWhen I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?
Steven WrightMy mom’s one of 13 siblings, and they all got six kids, and till I was 13 everybody was in Compton.
Kendrick LamarI have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.
Dylan ThomasWhen I was a kid at four years old, that’s when I started amateur wrestling with my dad and family. And when that’s instilled in you, it never goes away.
Dwayne JohnsonI remember as a little girl going down to the beet fields in the Dakotas and in Nebraska and Wyoming as migrant workers when I was very, very small, like, I was, like, 5 years old, I believe. And I remember going out there, you know, traveling to these states and living in these little tarpaper shacks that they had in Wyoming.
Dolores HuertaAs a boy, because I was born and raised in Ohio, about 60 miles north of Dayton, the legends of the Wrights have been in my memories as long as I can remember.
Neil ArmstrongI’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.
Maya AngelouI grew up in the golden age of Flash Gordon and sci-fi.
Margaret AtwoodThose of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the bedtime story, when our mother or father would sit down beside us in the semi-dark and read from a book of fairy tales.
Paul AusterI love to be alone, and I did as a child as well, especially if I was outside.
AuroraI grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.
Billie EilishI never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.
Abraham LincolnMy father gave me some advice when I was very young – whatever someone tells you in the future, don’t forget Pele is the best.
Jurgen KloppWhen I was maybe eight or nine years old, I first learned about the climate crisis in school. My teachers taught me about it and we saw films and pictures of plastic in the ocean and extreme weather events. Those pictures were just stuck in my head; I thought, there is no point in anything.
Greta Thunberg