Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory (born 1932)

Comedian and civil rights campaigner.

• "In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country."

• "Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, We don't serve colored people here. I said, That's all right. I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken. Then these three white boys came up to me and said, Boy, we're givin' you fair warnin'. Anything you do to that chicken, we're gonna do to you. So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, Line up, Boys!"

• "Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned."

• "I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that."

• "When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps."

• "I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark."

• "I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man."

• "If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you."

• "We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn't it either. I'm going to be an American Citizen. First class."

• "We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre."

• "In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport."