"There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch."

"I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year."

"In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star."

"I work to stay alive."

"What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin."

"So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship."

"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time."

"Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!"