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

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

When I act I try to express the suffering or joy I've known during my lifetime.

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

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

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

If whites bored me, it was because they bored themselves. They seemed to get little fun out of life and were desperately lonely.