“The fabulous places I’ve been, wonderful things that’ve happened, great people I’ve met ought to make a story.”

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

You take romance – I’ll take Jell-O.

She is amazingly creative, bringing so much more to a song than just a singer. She is a first-class musician and the most gracious person in the world.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.

Sometimes when we’re flying or in the hotel, I might run over songs, or in the bathroom.

Every time I look down on this timeless town, whether blue or gray be her skies, whether loud be her cheers, or whether soft be her tears, more and more do I realize that. I love Paris.

Whatever she does to my songs, she always makes them sound better.

I think I do better when I sing.

I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.

Coming through the years, and finding that I not only have just the fans of my day, but the young ones of today – that’s what it means, it means it was worth all of it.

Everybody wants to know about my style and how it came about. It’s no big secret. It’s the way I feel.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

She has been more famous, over a longer time span, than any other female singer.

I’ve had some wonderful love affairs and some that didn’t work out. I don’t want to dwell on that and I don’t want to put people down, but I think all the fabulous places I’ve been, the wonderful things that have happened for me, the great people I’ve met – that ought to make a story.

Music is the universal language. It brings people closer together.

When I’m on stage I feel at home

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun.

The things I believed in dont exist any more. It’s foolish to pretend that they do. Western Civilization finally went up in smoke in the chimneys at Dachau but I was too infatuated to see it. I see it now.

I’ve seen it, I know it too; love still dances in the fire after the rescue.

A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!

Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.

I have struck a city – a real city – and they call it Chicago… I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.

As an actor, you create a character from your understanding of what you have heard and your observations. Eventually, every film is an extension of the images that I have seen or what I have heard or read somewhere.