It's so nice to get flowers while you can still smell the fragrance.

It's ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.

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.

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.

I'm not a career kind of person. When I saw new music, new trends coming in, I didn't see any place for me. And I didn't think about it as a career loss, because I was married - I have a great- grandchild now. The low points were when I lost people that I really cared about.

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

Nobody black or white who really believes in democracy can stand aside now; everybody's got to stand up and be counted.