Lena Horne Quotes
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I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.
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I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.
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The naked female body is treated so weirdly in society. It's like people are constantly begging to see it, but once they do, someone's a hoe.
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I'm not alone, I'm free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody.
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A little nepotism never hurt nobody, honey. If you got it, use it. Press on with it. Remind them of it.
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I learned from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, the Nicholas Brothers, the whole thing, the whole schmear. [The Cotton Club] was a great place because it hired us, for one thing, at a time when it was really rough [for Black performers].
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It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. Carry it by the comfortable handles of gratitude for what's positive and that it is not worse, rather than the uncomfortable edges of bitterness for the negatives and that it is not better.
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Every color I can think of and nationality, we were all touched by Dr. King because he made us like each other and respect each other.
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The best thing about living... Is the chance to keep on doing it!
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You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way. But the slanting process is so subtle that you frequently don't realize how you're being slanted until very late in the game.
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My identity is very clear to me now, I am a black woman.
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It's ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.
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Count Basie isn't just a man, or even just a band. He's a way of life.
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Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
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I am not alone. I am free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody, I don't have to be a first to anybody. I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
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You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.
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Music became my refuge and then my salvation.
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I was lucky, as many of my generation was, in having a man like Dr. King in our lives. He came at a time that we needed to take a long look at each other and see how similar we were.
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I had my schooling right there in the Cotton Club.
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I remember the day Dr. King died. I wasn't angry at the beginning. It was like something very personal in my life had been touched and finished.
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I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
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I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.
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You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your autograph.
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After I got over the terrible pain of having something of mine taken from me, I began to think how bad everybody else must be feeling. It wasn't a nice time.