I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be let alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other.

All my life, I have maintained that the people of the world can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice.

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.

I have two loves: my country and Paris.

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.

One dance had made me the most famous colored woman in the world.