“I was given away. If your mother gives you away, you think everybody who comes into your life is going to give you away.”

Innocence is one of the most exciting things in the world.

Maybe subconsciously I feel I was meant to work hard for a living.

Eartha Mae is very shy. She’s scared to be seen, scared of rejection and even afraid of affection.

Orson Welles was one of these people who was defying everything the doctors told him he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He was really enjoying himself when he was eating what he wanted to eat.

I’m an orphan. But the public has adopted me, and that has been my only family. The biggest family in the world is my fans.

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.

I think it’s fun to look at people with big diamonds.

Let’s take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty.

I wouldn’t bother to describe me. I’m Eartha Kitt.

Just because you are different does not mean that you have to be rejected.

The public has become my fairy godmother.

The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it’s going to go and where you’ll wind up. Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track. Don’t let anyone deter you from that.

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.

My house was bugged. They couldn’t find any information on me being a subversive because I happen to love America; I just don’t like some of the things the government is doing.

I don’t carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it’s the general public that made me – not any one particular group. So I don’t think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.

People in general are used to seeing me as the naughty girl because that’s what they’ve always cast me as.

If you rattle along at great speed everybody inside is too exhilarated or too seasick to cause any trouble. But if you stop everybody gets out and argues about where to go next.

And last, my mom. I don’t think you know what you did. You had my brother when you were 18 years old. Three years later, I came out. The odds were stacked against us. Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21 years old. Everybody told us we weren’t supposed to be here.

Everybody loves to show up at the party once all the hard work is done.

Everybody should have an equal chance – but they shouldn’t have a flying start.

I think it’s horrible that people have to be told. Don’t smoke! Everybody knows it’s bad for the health. But they have to forbid it.

Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.

There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

Everybody’s story of getting into the industry is just as difficult as the next person. Whether you come from money or no money, it’s not easy… you have to offer yourself; you can’t expect someone to get you.