“We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a ❗☒”

“When I played Lady Day, I took Aba onstage with me as a joke. He started singing—in tune!—and the audience loved it.Eartha Kitt, when asked what tricks her poodle did.”

“I love to tease men with my legs.”

“Dr. Einstein was not successful in school, but he found something in the air from his own imagination and his own brain power, and look what he did.”

“I'm a dirt person. I trust the dirt. I don't trust diamonds and gold.”

“Live theater to me is much more free than the movies or television.”

“When the people who are responsible for our country ask you a direct question, I expect them to accept a direct answer, not to be blackballed because you are telling the truth.”

“I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.”

“Aging has a wonderful beauty and we should have respect for that.”

“A lot can be said with just a look, or the way the body moves. Each song is a different character. So each song takes on a different movement of the body. And the body has to go with the subject and the attitude that you have toward that subject.”

“When we want to have our own style of living, it is nobody's business but ours. What we do in private is our private business.”