Sometimes it's good to fall down to see who will pick you up.

Let's take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty

The biggest family in the world is my fans.

The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth, in a country that says you’re entitled to tell the truth, you get your face slapped and you get put out of work.

We're not thought of in terms of color because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain you not because we are black, white, pink, or green or gay or straight or because we are Catholic or Protestant.

When we want to have our own style of living, it is nobody's business but ours. What we do in private is our private business.

The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons—and I know what it's like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson—we raise children and send them to war.