We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

I don't care to dress up except when it is necessary or good for my business.

There is a certain type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals.

Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show.

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

There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.

Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me.