All of a sudden I feel more womanly, I feel like I got a figure. I was always really straight up and down, the skinny one in the middle, like that poster at Elaine's of the Supremes at Lincoln Center - it was done by Joe Eula. To me that's really a reflection of the way I was. I was just like a bean pole. Now I'm getting a few curves and I like it.

I want to go Africa. I want to go to China. There are some places I want to go not to work, but to really explore and to see for my own education.

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?'

It's easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.

I would like to enjoy my life a little bit more so I can really have more fun, but my work is my fun.

For some reason, my main movie, Lady Sings the Blues, to me really isn't me. I really can let go of Diana Ross when I see the movie. I'm really objective when I'm watching it. I liked that movie so much. That movie was like magic so that when I'm looking at it I'm really not seeing myself, I'm seeing the actress. I'm seeing another person, not the me of me.

I don't have to sit around and wait for the next movie to come along, I can go out and sing.