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

Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me.

There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

What impressed me most about New York were its huge apartment houses.

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.

When you dominate other people's emotions, the time has to come when you will have to pay, and heavily, for that privilege.

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