We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks.

I was in New York, miserable because I was working supper clubs but I wasn't expressing myself. I was really unhappy with my life. I saw Max Roach again and he told me I didn't have to do things like that. He made me an honest woman on the stage. I have been performing in that tradition since. I feel that I'm a serious performer now whereas then I wanted to be but I didn't know how.

I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me.

We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks.

The best thing you can do is to be a woman and stand before the world and speak your heart.

There are men and women still on the streets, and that's all they are saying Can you spare a quarter? I come from a crowd of people who were current on the outlook on life, who were social and knew where they were and had some input into how things seemed to be.

You can never loose a thing If it belongs to you.