Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good

I think it was just an opera. Now, you go to opera, you expect to see and hear what the opera is. So, it was Catfish Row. It was singers. Marvelous voices. It didn't make no difference what color they were

Pass that thing, slightly, lightly and politely.

Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.

You don't think it was because a white man wrote it, a black man wrote it, a green man wrote it. What-doesn't make a difference!

What opera isn't violent? Two things happen, violence and love. And other than that, name something else. You can't