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

Count Basie isn't just a man, or even just a band. He's a way of life.

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

After I got over the terrible pain of having something of mine taken from me, I began to think how bad everybody else must be feeling. It wasn't a nice time.

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

Malcolm X raised my consciousness about myself and my people and other people more than any person I know. I knew him before he became Malcolm X.

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.