After years in white theaters I dreaded working in colored houses. The noise, the stomping, whistling, and cheering that hadn't annoyed me when I was young was now something I dreaded.

There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.

Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

There had been lots of crises in my life. And there was plenty of spunk and battle cry still left in me.

My whole family could sing. My family harmonized without any instruments to accompany them.

I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider.