I hate being called an ‚icon.‘ I just don’t like it. That’s all there is to it.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, ‚black feminist‘ does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it’s just… womanish.

I’m a child of God first. Before I became a celebrity, I was baptized a Christian.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

We can have no ’50-50′ allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

I never eat salad. I make sure I don’t put a lot of junk into my system, but I hate vegetables!

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

You’ll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.

Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

In England, when an athlete gets to the top, we do our best to destroy him.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

There are some teams and logos you see, no matter where you are in the world, and you know exactly who they are and what they mean.

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

The moment I said I’d finished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone who’d got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because I’d written Harry Potter. That would have been why.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

I barely can go shopping for clothes. I find it difficult to walk into stores. The whole thing bores me so much.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I’ve always strived to be successful, not famous.

I met my husband before I became a star, and he doesn’t care about any of it.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‚blackness‘ than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I always thought of myself as a character actor. I never thought of myself as a leading man.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

I think sometimes celebrities get so big, they’re not reachable.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

We are what we believe we are.

A fool is wise in his eyes.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.