The greatest acts in colored show business had long made Harlem their home and favorite stamping ground.

New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been.

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out.

I never posed as a saint. I would have slept with a man for nothing if I liked him well enough.

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

I am an isolationist.

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.