I never accepted the idea that I was all through. I guess no person who has once been a star can do that, ever.

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been.

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.

We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.

It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.

The greatest acts in colored show business had long made Harlem their home and favorite stamping ground.