I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try.

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.

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

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

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

I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.