Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

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

Sex was a pleasurable form of exercise, like dancing.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

I'm not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

Is that what they call a vocation, what you do with joy as if you had fire in your heart, the devil in your body?

A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.