We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.
It has been an ache and a joy both to look over this big shoulder of mine at all my yesterdays.
I had always loved John Ford's pictures. And I came to love him, too, but I was frightened to death working for him. He used the shock treatment while directing me.
We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.
Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me.
Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.
We show girls were forced to live in whorehouses in each town, no other accommodations being available.
Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show.
Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news.
You are a person of the greatest importance when you are a mother of a family. Just do your job right and your kids will love you.
There's no hypocrisy in Hell's Kitchen.
There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.
There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business.
The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down.
Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me.