“If you are going to think black think positive about it. Don't think down on it or think it is something in your way. And this way when you really do want to stretch out and express how beautiful black is everybody will hear you.”

“If I do have some success I'd like to enjoy it for heaven's sake! What is the point of having it otherwise?”

“The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do.”

“Who I am is the best I can be.”

“For a long time the only time I felt beautiful-in the sense of being complete as a woman as a human being and even female-was when I was singing.”

“If you are going to think black think positive about it. Don't think down on it or think it is something in your way. And this way when you really do want to stretch out and express how beautiful black is everybody will hear you.”

“You should always know when you're shifting gears in life. You should leave your era it should never leave you.”

“Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises.”

“And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”