I grew up in Muenchen where my father has been a professor for pharmaceutic chemistry at the university. He had studied chemistry and medicine, having been a research student in Leipzig with Wilhelm Ostwald, the Nobel Laureate 1909. So I became familiar with the life of a scientist in a chemical laboratory quite early.

I never prayed for no money, and I never prayed for no fame. I said, 'I'll take care of that myself. You just keep me healthy and I'll do all I can to try to turn people around, to try to steer 'em in the right direction.' That's the whole trip in life, ya know.

The one thing I've learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the 'civilized' world wish - either secretly or openly - that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I'm-so-glad-to-be-me spirit that black folks have made a part of American life.

Life Quotes