Top 66 Malcolm Quotes

It is our family’s hope that the true legacy and context of Malcolm X’s life continues to be shared with people from all walks of life in a positive manner that helps promote the goals and ideals for which Malcolm X so passionately advocated.

I had seen ‘Do the Right Thing’ when I was at college, and it was incredibly inspiring as a piece of cinema. Just brilliant, I thought. But saw ‘Malcolm X’ with a crowded audience. It was my first time in an American cinema, hearing an audience respond. You know, in England, everyone is so restrained.

If they had not murdered Malcolm X, there probably never would have been a Black Panther Party.

I’m sorry to bang on about it because I know everyone is, but Bryan Cranston in ‘Breaking Bad’ is remarkable. To see him switch from ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ to suddenly become Walter White is incredible. It’s a) nice to see an actor given that chance, and b) great to see him really take full advantage of it.

I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.

He was always – I like to say of Malcolm – he was just simply electrical. Everything he did almost was dramatic, and it wasn’t that he was trying to be: it was just the nature of him.

Under Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal governments in the 1970s, large numbers of refugees fleeing Vietnam in wretched boats were taken in without any great fuss.

Playing with Angus and Malcolm, that’s a pretty tough gig, mate. That made me the maniac that I am today, no doubt.

I come from an era of black pride, black power, my father riding around listening to James Brown singing, ‘Say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud,’ and people walking around with African medallions and Malcolm X hats.

Janet Malcolm’s probably the writer I most admire and who’s most influenced me.

We had no money, and we had to go through ‘punk’ school. We ended up living in the rehearsal room that used to be the Sex Pistols rehearsal room at Malcolm McLaren’s office. So we had this sort of interesting beginning.

Malcolm X was a man among men.

If you blink, you will miss me, but I am in ‘Malcolm X.’

I met Malcolm the month before he was killed. He deeply changed my mind about America.

In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.

I like Malcolm Gladwell.

My mother witnessed the martyrdom of her husband, Hajj Malik Shabazz, Malcolm X, on Sunday, February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. My older sisters, Attallah, Qubilah and I were seated with our mother up front and stage right.

We should understand the impact that Malcolm had on the whole of American society.

I now believe Malcolm Turnbull is worse than Tony Abbott.

I’d been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

Malcolm X raised my consciousness about myself and my people and other people more than any person I know. I knew him before he became Malcolm X.

My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition.

‘Macbeth’ sags in act four – the England scene with Malcolm and Macduff just doesn’t work theatrically. But with ‘Hamlet,’ although the play is so long, Shakespeare manages to sustain the arc.

I was chastised for writing several obituaries for Malcolm X, exploring different aspects of his writing. One teacher in particular told me, didn’t I think I was beating a dead horse? and dismissively threw my paper on my desk.

Coming up, the music of my era was very conscious. I grew up on Public Enemy, and it was popular culture to be aware. People were wearing Malcolm X T-shirts and Malcolm X hats. It was a very cool thing to know who Malcolm X was. It was all in the lyrics. It was trendy to be conscious and aware.

The rage was in me, and if it wasn’t for the rage, then I wouldn’t know how to be calm. They feed off of each other. Just like when Malcolm X fed off Martin Luther King. They needed each other.

The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia – its need and its right to be a strategically independent country.

The last time time I saw the guys was at the end of the ‘Rock Or Bust’ tour. Yeah, everybody was fine. Malcolm hadn’t passed yet, and, of course, I’m sure it hit Angus very, very hard – as with all of us, actually.

I thank those activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and others. They risked – and sometimes lost – their lives in the name of freedom and equality.

We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the ’60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.

I think for guys – you’re going to have some people that are willing to be on the front line. You think of guys like Malcolm Jenkins, Demario Davis – guys that are willing to speak up and say, ‘Hey, there’s a problem, and I want to help change, and I want to be a vessel to keep this thing moving and see change.’

The two contemporary writers whom I consider as role models are Janet Malcolm and Michael Lewis.

If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.

My thesis was on kinetics studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. When that was finished, I was granted a British Council Fellowship to work under the supervision of Malcolm Dixon.

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock ‘n roll records to trendy customers.

Malcolm and Eddie Show,’ a lot of other people came and went, but Malcolm and Eddie were steady on the case.

Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad’s message made a whole lot of people feel whole again, human being again. Some of them came out and found a new meaning to their manhood and their womanhood.

Doing ‘Malcolm and Eddie’ was probably the foremost miserable years of my life.

People kind of have a misconception, because when someone calls me Theo and I correct them, say, ‘No, my name is Malcolm,’ they think I have an attitude about it and I don’t want to be associated with the show.

David Icke reminded me of Malcolm X.

I was never named in the early years as having anything to do with the assassination of Malcolm.

It’s been a while since I checked in with Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Revisionist History’ podcast. The episode ‘The King of Tears’ suggests the author is raising the bar. His argument is that country music is the genre that makes us cry because, unlike rock, it’s not afraid of specifics.

If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they’re killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We’d not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.

As someone who has an affinity and passion for discussing racial and cultural issues, I made it a point to only discuss those issues when they really mattered and not turn the shows into Malcolm X Unplugged.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

In 1974, when I started working with the material that became ‘Horses,’ a lot of our great voices had died. We’d lost Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, and people like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

With guys I revere, like Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X, their look is less about style than purpose and the expression of beauty. It wasn’t just about being noticed, you know?

Aretha Franklin was as important to the civil-rights movement as Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. Artists can choose to take on the tremendous amount of responsibility we have, or choose to ignore it.

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with ‘On the Road’ and ‘The Dharma Bums’, I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse.

People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don’t do this and don’t do that. But it’s hard to live up to some people’s expectations.

Malcolm was a firm believer in the value and importance of our heritage. He believed that we have valuable and distinct cultural traditions which need to be institutionalized so that they can be passed on to our heirs.

From Matthew Brady and the Civil War through, say, Robert Capa in World War II to people like Malcolm Brown and Tim Page in Vietnam. There was, seems to me, a kind of war-is-hell photography where the photographer is actually filming from life.

I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X’s speech ‘Message to the Grass Roots.’