A person has to be busy to be alive.

A person has to be busy to be alive.

You cannot fool an audience.

Prejudice: Sometimes it's like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.

When I sing, I don't want them to see that my face is black; I don't want them to see that my face is white - I want them to see my soul. And that is colorless.

Sometimes you're overwhelmed when a thing comes, and you do not realize the magnitude of the affair at that moment. When you get away from it, you wonder, did it really happen to you.

I had gone to Europe . . . to reach for a place as a serious artist, but I never doubted that I must return. I was - and am - an American.