If I woke up every day attempting to be my father, I would fail miserably. I think he was anointed. He was chosen by God, and there are few men or women in our world that will be chosen by God to make the kind of impact that he made.

I never knew what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.

Drag was not only my introduction to womanhood, but my introduction to entertainment. It was the first time I realized that I could move a crowd.

To tell you the truth, my father says I came out of the womb literally singing and dancing, as though there was a spotlight on me. When I ask what I was like when I was little, they just say 'loud.'

I feel to invite women everywhere to rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know.

It is your passion that empowers you to be able to do that thing you were created to do.

So though there are many things I would have done differently, I submit to God's sovereignty and His purpose in my life and I thank Him that He brought me the way He brought me and gave me what He gave me when He thought I could handle it.

Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing - where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger; which he knows he was meant and made to do.

I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life.

By making our people in the Western Hemisphere hate Africa, we ended up hating ourselves. We hated our African characteristics. We hated our African identity. We hated our African features. So much so that you would find those of us in the West who would hate the shape of our nose. We would hate the shape of our lips. We would hate the color of our skin and the texture of our hair. This was a reaction, but we didn't realize that it was a reaction.

No one will know who we are... until we now who we are! We will be able to go anywhere until we know where we are!

Under the pitiful misapprehension that it would make them better, these Hill Negroes were breaking their backs trying to imitate white people.