Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

I was born out of wedlock. Nobody brought me up.

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.

Among Negroes it is a bad omen when someone knocks on the door of a house where a person has died.

The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down.

I have always been psychic. The walls of any room I walk into talk to me.