I wondered what I would do if I didn't have my God to turn to and be able to read the Book He had divinely inspired.

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

I could always open shows, perform through the middle, and close shows.

I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.

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

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

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.