As 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.

Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.

I’ve never bought into any sort of hard and fast, this-box/that-box characterization. People are individuals. Yes, they may be expected to be a particular way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be that way.

I have noticed… that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women.

The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

Funny thing is that the poorer people are, the more generous they seem to be.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

How do I know about a man’s needs for a sex symbol? I’m a girl.

Yup, the whole birther movement was racist.

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

Here’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.

Everyone got kind of crazy with me mentioning I was in love with a woman.

We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

A chaplain’s assistant is customarily a figure of fun in the American Army.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.

I’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.

If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.

Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

Yeah, 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.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.

I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don’t buy it.

You don’t hear no artists from Compton showing vulnerability.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful. And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption.

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.

Men want to make women happy.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

We do not want the men of another color for our brothers-in-law, but we do want them for our brothers.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

All fat women look the same; they all look 42.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.

I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We’re African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

The French complain of everything, and always.

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than professors.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn’t white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

Even now I will go to, like, an industry event, and all the ladies will be over here and all the guys over here, and I will go to the guys‘ table and sit because I just feel I can have a much better conversation over there. And that’s automatic; it’s not prejudice.

In Germany, they all thought I was a bit mental, very emotional.

Perception often lags behind reality, and I can say from experience that the vast majority of public officials in Louisiana are much better than our reputation holds us to be.

Why are women… so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

I think women go crazy for a reason. It’s not like it just happens.

I definitely feel closer to the feminine side of the human being than I do the male – or the American idea of what a male is supposed to be. Just watch a beer commercial and you’ll see what I mean.

My family didn’t have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, ‚Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?‘ And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

People take the little bit of information they’re fed, and they draw a picture of who you are. Most of the time, it’s wrong.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.