I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters – two beautiful, intelligent black young women – playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters, and all our sons and daughters, now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

The worst way of flying, I think, is standby. It never works. That’s why they call it standby. You end up standing there going, ‚Bye!‘

No man goes before his time – unless the boss leaves early.

I’ve exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.

An unemployed court jester is nobody’s fool.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.

There’s only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I’ll get married again.

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

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

If you like a person you say ‚let’s go into business together.‘ Man is a social animal after all, but such partnerships are fraught with danger.

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.

You know an odd feeling? Sitting on the toilet eating a chocolate candy bar.

When we quarrel, how we wish we had been blameless.

There was one incident at a movie theater where my girl got mad at these guys who were talking behind us. I never looked back there, but she was like, ‚Will you all just shut up!‘ And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, ‚What are you doing?!‘ I was like, ‚You better get up here! I don’t play the fighting games.‘

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

How marriage ruins a man! It is as demoralizing as cigarettes, and far more expensive.

When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.

Well I think a lot of times we’re putting things off and I’m going to do it later. I’m going to break this bad habit or I’m going to pursue this dream or I’m going to treat my spouse better.

When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that’s when I think life is over.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there’s some vibration, some connection.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.

I hate to be smart.

Marriage is this grand madness, and I think if people knew that, they would perhaps take it more seriously.

The male, for all his bravado and exploration, is the loyal one, the one who generally feels love. The female is skilled at betrayal and torture and damnation.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Men and women may form associations for and among themselves and be governed by stipulations that are mutually acceptable.

Love is a state of being.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

When I say I’m going to take care of a woman, I don’t just mean physically or sexually or romantically. I’m going to take care of her emotionally and spiritually. I’m going to take care of her in all ways. I take a lot of pride in that today.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

It’s so much easier to like people, and to let people in, to trust them until they prove that you should do otherwise. The alternative is being an iceberg.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

I don’t have time to be lonely. And I get fearful of relationships because I feel guilty about wanting someone to be completely faithful and loyal, when I can’t even give them 10 percent of the attention that they need. It’s just the reality of my time, my life, my schedule.

Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.