I know the most terrible thing that can happen to a woman. That is the gang-up. Men put you to sleep with their drops and one man after another goes in and takes you.

The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down.

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

Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down.

My father came back one day and forced my mother to submit to him. He raped her, holding a knife.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

Asking what I considered an impossible salary when I didn't want to work for someone has boosted my pay again and again.