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

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

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

Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races.

I could depend a lot on my shaking, though I never shimmied vulgarly and only to express myself.

I had a probing mind and an elephant memory.

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.