I am an isolationist.

I've never been able to feel that there is anything undignified about making your living by the sweat of your brow.

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

After years in white theaters I dreaded working in colored houses. The noise, the stomping, whistling, and cheering that hadn't annoyed me when I was young was now something I dreaded.

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.

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