I'm still with that feeling that I am afraid of doing the wrong thing, because somebody is going to punish me.

I fight for other people better than I fight for myself.

When I played Lady Day, I took Aba onstage with me as a joke. He started singing-in tune!-and the audience loved it.

The stage floor was a stage of thin ice for me to tread. To hold my own or to sink through and die, never to be remembered.

Don't depend on other people to be responsible for you. Don't make yourself stressed out over nonsensical things like material things.

I love being in America. I used to love traveling and I am glad that I was able to go around the world. I still love to go to Europe, but I always want to come home.

I was given away. If your mother gives you away, you think everybody who comes into your life is going to give you away.