I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.

I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.

In my early days I was a sepia Hedy Lamarr. Now I'm black and a woman, singing my own way.

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. Carry it by the comfortable handles of gratitude for what's positive and that it is not worse, rather than the uncomfortable edges of bitterness for the negatives and that it is not better.

I learned from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, the Nicholas Brothers, the whole thing, the whole schmear. [The Cotton Club] was a great place because it hired us, for one thing, at a time when it was really rough [for Black performers].

I remember the day tDr. King died. I wasn't angry at the beginning. It was like something very personal in my life had been touched and finished.

I thought of singing and acting as a living-making. I was able to take care of myself and a few of my friends.