I found that a couple of bottles of beer would give me a lift, but the third bottle would sober me up.

Twenty-five years is a long time for a girl to live out of a trunk, and after looking over a few houses, I fell in love with one in Southwest Los Angeles.

Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races.

We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

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.

Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.