Always be smarter than the people who hire you.

Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death.

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

My identity is very clear to me now, I am a black woman.

The best thing about living... Is the chance to keep on doing it!

The naked female body is treated so weirdly in society. It's like people are constantly begging to see it, but once they do, someone's a hoe.

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way. But the slanting process is so subtle that you frequently don't realize how you're being slanted until very late in the game.