We speak of the masculine and the feminine, but they are the wrong labels. It is really more a matter of poetry versus intellectualization.

When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. I see in you that part of me which is you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, we share the same madness.

jazz is the expression of America's romantic self, its sensual potency, its lyrical force.

There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.

If a person continues to see only giants, it means he is still seeing the world through the eyes of a child. I have a feeling that man's fear of woman comes from having first seen her as the mother, creator of men.

Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you.

I believe the lasting revolution comes from deep changes in ourselves which influence our collective life.