"A brilliant young woman I know was asked once to support her argument in favor of social welfare. She named the most powerful source imaginable: the look in a mother's face when she cannot feed her children. Can you look that hungry child in the eyes? See the blood on his feet from working barefoot in the cotton fields. Or do you ask his baby sister with her belly swollen from hunger if she cares about her daddy's work ethics?"

"The state is currently spending five times more for the education for a white child than it is fitting to educate a colored child. That means better textbooks for that child than for that child. I say that's a shame, but my opponent says today is not the day for whites and coloreds to go to the same college. To share the same campus. To walk into the same classroom. Well, would you kindly tell me when that day is gonna come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!"

"In Texas they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes and, worse, the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog. Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing. No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing. Just left us wondering, "Why?" My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law is no law at all." Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter."

"You know, pretending to be a man does have its disadvantages."

"[looking at a glass of White Wine] The last time I saw a specimen like this they had to shoot the horse."

"So, I'm a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman."

"You two-timing son of a bitch! He's a woman!"

"[Victoria, in her disguise, pulls Norma into the bedroom and starts taking off her clothes] Oh, now wait a minute...WAIT!!!!! [whispers] Lock the door!"

"Thinks he can just push me around! Thinks I'm just gonna hop on the next boat for the States and that'll be that! Well, you've got another thing coming Mr. Big-shot Fairy Marchand! 'Cause Mrs. Cassidy's little goirl Norma ain't gonna take this one lyin' down! [Norma boards the train and walks all the way down the corridor, raving to herself. She gets out on the balcony of the last car] And don't kid yourself! You ain't seen the last of me yet! [She opens her coat to reveal her underclothes. A boarding passenger, distracted by this, falls off the platform behind the train] Oh, you okay?"

"You can't think about it, you just gotta put it out of your mind! The more you think about it, the more you worry. The more you worry, the more you think. [eating chocolates] Think, worry, worry, think... mm! too soft... It just gets like a vicious cycle! And then, before you know it, you are impudent! [King walks out of the bathroom, holding a bar of soap] What's with the soap?"

"Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race."

"Thank you. Thank you, thank you, you're most kind. In fact, you're every kind."

"You were marvelous! And I never want to see any of you again!"

"[to the dancers on stage after they drop him] You bitches."

"I know what you're thinking... and you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"There's nothing more inconvenient than an old queen with a head cold."

"God, there've been times I'd have given my soul to be able to cry like that."