When I became 'The American Dream,' they needed a hero down here. I had no money - I couldn't buy a car without being tied under - but I had to have a Cadillac with blue stars on the hood no matter what it cost because just driving in it will set how they look at me and perceive this guy; they'll know.

If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food that's all I cared about.

It's so amazing standing on the corner -this happened in Washington D.C. - and somebody comes by in a Cadillac and you hear 'Manic Monday' on the radio and you don't even know this person and they're listening to it and singing along with it. Wow! Blows your mind.