To appear on the stage drunk, to have them leave there and remember me making drunken mistakes, that was death.

Most orgies that you go to, I have found, most of it is sad. All that wildness, all those laughs were like the shining silver and gold paper on packages, but there was nothing inside.

To appear on the stage drunk, to have them leave there and remember me making drunken mistakes, that was death.

I've done some things I wish I could erase. . . . I invented mistakes. But the mistakes must be seen in context, and they must be weighed along with the positives.

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted.

My home has always been show business.

Being in public with May and the children was too heavy. I was irreversibly tuned in to everyone around us.