A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God... When you have been given something in a moment of grace, it is sacrilegious to be greedy.

If you have a purpose in which you can believe, there's no end to the amount of things you can accomplish.

You lose a lot of time, hating people.

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.

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

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.

Every one has a gift for something, even if it is the gift of being a good friend.

Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether.

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it

Anybody who dies with money in the bank is a failure.

My health and my family are the core of my being.

I expect to get paid if I do something.

Matter is fun for a while; but ultimately, it is the spiritual experience where we leap beyond what we know- that is the happiness.

Most of us do not like to look inside ourselves for the same reason we don't like to open a letter that has bad news.

Deal with him, Hemingway!

I wanted to honor [George Gershwin]. He's a great American songwriter.

Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.

Most of my ideas just come out funny.

No matter what we as individual women want, no matter what our goals, we have to support one another.