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

But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.

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.

I don't have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapist is in my paint brushes.

Sing a song correctly and you live forever.