Diplomacy - the art of jumping into trouble without making a splash.

The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence, and obsolescence.

Yes, I backed the hula hoop. And I had a lot of other people come to me with ideas that turned out well

Kids do say the darndest things

Children have an unerring instinct for knowing when they are being patronized. They go immediately on the defensive against head-patting adults who treat them like strange beings.

No one can keep from aging, but there is no need to grow old.

I stand fearlessly for small dogs, the American Flag, motherhood and the Bible. That's why people love me.

If anything is worth trying at all, it's worth trying at least 10 times.

If you don't go far enough back in memory or far enough ahead in hope, your future will be impoverished.

I've learned it's always better to have a small percentage of a big success, than a hundred percent of nothing.

Being alive at 87 is quite an accomplishment if you're curious, interested, seeing the fun out of life, doing things, having a purpose.

I asked him: Why didn’t you just tell me? He said: ‘If I tell you, you’ll just forget at some critical point. If you figure it out for yourself, you’ll always remember.

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census', and people fall asleep.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family.

Those who help the poor the most also hurt them the most.

I used to walk around saying that I'm just another black man without a college degree.

A lot of people think that I'm a Michael Jackson impersonator.

When you get older, you realize it's a lot less about your place in the world but your place in you. It's not how everyone views you, but how you view yourself

She looked at me like I was crazy. Most of my lovers do, and that's partly why they love me, and partly why they leave

One time, a Protestant minister said, "We made Jesus blonde haired and blue eyed and very cute. We made Jesus somehow a much more feminine figure." And there's probably truth to that.