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

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.

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 really do hate to sing.

I'm not alone, I'm free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody.

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.

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