Autobiographers From The United States

"I said "Hell no, because you didn't find a weapon; or if that's the charge you would have to lock me up because my hands and feet are deadly weapons.""

"I'm not perfect, I'm not an angel, but I try to live a certain way because it brings honour and respect to my mother. I tell people that when they look at me, they're looking at nothing but a big, overgrown, tough mama's boy. That's who I am."

"Shut up Murdock, crazy fool!"

"Hannibal is on the jazz."

"People ask what gives me the authority to give advice? I say, First of all, I don't give advice. Dr Phil gives advice. Mr T helps people. I motivate them, I inspire them, I give them hope, and I plant the seed so they can feel good about themselves."

"I think about my father being called 'boy,' my uncle being called 'boy,' my brother, coming back from Vietnam and being called 'boy.' So I questioned myself: 'What does a black man have to do before he's given the respect as a man?' So when I was 18 years old, when I was old enough to fight and die for my country, old enough to drink, old enough to vote, I said I was old enough to be called a man. I self-ordained myself Mr. T so the first word out of everybody's mouth is 'Mr.' That's a sign of respect that my father didn't get, that my brother didn't get, that my mother didn't get."

"I pity the university for not giving T enough time. You know I got all duded up, got dressed, the students were all ready for me, then they gave me short time. So I pity them. So if they want to be unpitied, they'll invite me back and give me more time."

"You're going through college, and you're going to be faced with a lot of things. You're going to face adversity, the main thing is don't quit. For many people it's easy to quit, but don't. That's what separates the winners from the losers, what separates the all-stars from the also-rans."

"People ask me what the "T" stands for in my name. If you're a man, the "T" stands for tough. If you're a woman or child, it stands for tender!"

"I remember one time I tried to pity this fool. He told me his name was Jeff. He was married. He pulled out his wallet and showed me three pictures of his kids; Kelly, Robert, Brittany. Real cute kids. Don't get too close man. It's hard to pity a fool if you get too close."

"I wanted to win to feed the hungry people of my community. I didn't want to win to buy a diamond – I didn't have no diamonds then. I didn't want to win to buy a car, I didn't want to win to bring a couple of chicks downtown to a hotel. I wanted to win to feed the poor people of the community."

"It takes a smart guy to play dumb."

"I pity the fool who drinks soy milk."

"As a kid, I got three meals a day. Oatmeal, miss-a-meal and no meal."

"I believe in the Golden Rule - The Man with the Gold... rules."

"Well, maybe Mr. T hacked the game and created a Mohawk class! Maybe, Mr. T's pretty handy with computers! Had that occurred to you, Mr. "Condescending" Director?!"

"I'm Mr. T and I'm a "Night Elf Mohawk"! What's YOUR game?"

"I ain't no computer hacker!"

"For 5 years Mr. T disappeared. Fools went unpitied and Jibba-Jabba went unchallenged!"

"I tell people that I was born and raised in the ghetto, but the ghetto was not born and raised in me."

"SPEEDWALKING?! I pity you fool! You a disgrace to the man race! It's time to run like a real man! Take that speedwalker! Do it again sucker, and there's going to be trouble! With a capital Mr.T! Snickers, get some nuts!"

"Quit yo Jibber-jabber! You ain't hurt, yo pathetic!, Argh! If I ever catch you acting like a crazy fool again, you're gonna meet my friend pain! Snickers, get some nuts!"

"Yo makin' me mad sucker, cold water never hurt nobody! It's time to get in da pool, 'cause you're goin' swimmin', fool! TAKE THAT, TOEDIPPER! Argh! Argh! I hate flying, so this had better be the last time I see yo cryin'! Snickers, get some nuts!"

"Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt don't wear clothes with your name on it, so why should you wear their name?"

"Anger - use it, but don't lose it!"

"Shut up, fool!"

"Hey, everybody gotta’ put on clothes and if you don’t you get arrested."

"We didn't starve. We spent wisely. Like I tell people in the ghetto, "If you can buy guns and bullets, why can't you buy food? You can buy heroin and crack cocaine, so why can't you buy bread and butter and milk? Why can't you pay your rent?" There's a lot of people in the ghetto who go out and get a fancy car and all that. The car costs more than their house. Meanwhile, your kids need shoes. That's not cool."

"First name Mr, middle name 'period', last name T!"

"See, if I come into a black neighborhood and say, "Thanks for watching my show," and give out high fives and all that, I'm not doing no good. I go out and see a kid grabbing his crotch. Ain't nobody telling them that. Where do they get it from? They watch MTV. I say, "If you wash up more often, you won't have to grab your crotch." I'm telling these guys, "Why you gotta grab your crotch?" Then you see Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch 50 times. What's with him?"

"Do you know me? Of course you do. 'Cause I'm famous!"

"Everything started as a dream. You gotta have insight, know what you want. You gotta have a plan. Like I tell anybody, if you fail to plan, you're planning to fail. I've been planning ever since I was a youngster. You've got to start from somewhere. There's nothing wrong or demeaning in flipping burgers. It's more proud than selling drugs."

"When you see me now, I'm nothing but a big overgrown tough mama's boy. And I speak that with glee because the problem with society is we don't have enough mama's boys."

"I didn't just start doing this today. Not like some people that have a movie coming out, so they go visit kids in the hospital. You don't need that phony crap. All of these celebrities, they turn my stomach with their funny stuff. I've been going in the ghettos without the press, without bodyguards, talking to kids. "Get to reading, stay in school. You don't have to carry a gun." I know about peer pressure and all that, but I say, "Hey, they called me a sissy because I wouldn't join a gang. Who was calling me a sissy? Does it make me a sissy because somebody called me a sissy?" [...] I'm going to fight if you touch me or hurt me or do harm to my family. But if you call me a bad name, or whatnot, I'm too smart for that. That's the message the kids need to hear coming from me. I tell them, "If I fought every time somebody called me a name, I would never get out of jail. But I'm disciplined. I'm smarter than that." So I tell them, like my mother said, "Consider the source." When you see who called you the name, then you understand why they're doing it. Then you don't have to stoop that low."

"Hey, you with the teeth..."

"Mr. T has the greatest hair in the world. You can't deny it, it's been proven by science, fool!"

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

"I feel I no longer fit in with these times."

"Coolidge: Sins. Mrs. Coolidge: Well, what did he say about it? Coolidge: He was against it."

"I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement. It is a maxim of our institutions, that the government does not make the people, but the people make the government."

"He placed in my hands an official report and told me that President Harding had just passed away. My wife and I at once dressed. Before leaving the room I knelt down and, with, the same prayer with which I have since approached the altar of the church, asked God to bless the American people and give me power to serve them."

"Practically all the civil and military authorities of the government, except the Congress and the courts, hold their office at [the President's] discretion. He appoints, and he can remove. The billions of dollars of government revenue are collected and expended under his direction. The Congress makes the laws, but it is the President who causes them to be executed. A power so vast in its implications has never been conferred upon any ruling sovereign. Yet the President exercises his authority in accordance with the Constitution and the law. He is truly the agent of the people, performing such functions as they have entrusted to him."

"They hired the money, didn't they?"

"In other periods of depression it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground for hope — nothing of man. But there is still religion, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That continues as a solid basis for hope and courage."

"At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it."

"But the pressure to speak is constant and intolerable. However, I resisted most of it."

"Nothing is more dangerous to good government than great power in improper hands."

"This was my first introduction to the Constitution of the United States. Although I was but thirteen years old the subject interested me exceedingly. The study of it which I then began has never ceased, and the more I study it the more I have come to admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. The good it has wrought can never be measured."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers"

"It was here that I first saw the light of day; here I received my bride, here my dead lie pillowed on the loving breast of our eternal hills."