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

Malcolm X made me very strong at a time I needed to understand what I was angry about. He had peace in his heart. He exerted a big influence on me.

I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.

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've seen so much. And I've heard so many great performers. There are performers now that couldn't work back in the days when I came along.

I was lucky, as many of my generation was, in having a man like Dr. King in our lives. He came at a time that we needed to take a long look at each other and see how similar we were.

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.