“Since I was 16, I’ve felt a black cloud hangs over me. Since then, I have taken pills for depression.”

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

I love to live and I live to love.

Sisters come before carpet burns and blisters.

I’d like to be remembered as someone who wasn’t satisfied with just one level of musicianship as someone who was a pioneer.

I never went round to loads of managers saying ‘this is what I have, this is my product and I’m going to be famous so you’d better sign me up.’ They came to me.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

I don’t understand, Why do I stress the man, When there’s so many bigger things at hand?

Music was my ultimate ambition but I liked all of it. I wanted to discipline myself in dance and acting too and I’d done all three since I was 9-years-old. I could sing, but I didn’t become a great singer.

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family.

I’m romantic. I fall in love every day. Not with people but with situations. The other day, I saw a tramp polishing his shoes. That just gripped my heart.

I’m a young woman and I’m going to write about what I know.

If you don’t throw yourself into something, you’ll never know what you could have had.

I’m a realist and a dreamer. There are certain things you can give certain people and certain things you can’t.

I saw a picture of myself when I came out of the hospital. I didn’t recognize myself.

Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.

It would be very heard, for example, a basketball owner, no matter how racist he was, to try to operate without Blacks. It would be suicidal.

I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

Black women are very capable of leading our organizations. I believe that firmly.

Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?

If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

There are restroom facilities for white ladies and colored women, white men and colored men. We stand outside after being served at the same ticket counter instead of sitting on the inside.