The name was a fluke. A joke. It started when I was doing A Christmas Carol in San Diego. We'd sit backstage and talk about names we'd never give our children, like Pork Pie or Independence. Of course, now people are walking around with those names. A woman said to me, 'If I was your mother, I would have called you Whoopi, because when you're unhappy you make a sound like a whoopee cushion. It sounds like a fart.' It was like 'Ha-ha-ha-ha-Whoopi!' So people actually started calling me Whoopi Cushion. After about a year, my mother said, 'You won't be taken seriously if you call yourself Whoopi Cushion. So try this combination: Whoopi Goldberg.'

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and …

Thanks! Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted this! You don't know...my brother sitting there, he says 'Thank God we don't have to listen to anymore... you c…

I am very attractive and get cuter the older I get. I'm even getting -- well, not statuesque, but I'm growing. I'm expanding. That's the best way to put it.

On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention …

I've said it once and I'll say it a a hundred times, I'm forty-four years old.

Some people say 'Oh, I wish I was a transvestite!' and I say, 'Well, if you work hard at school, maybe one day, you know: After your exams:'