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" There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing. "

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" Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out of the earth when the sun goes down. "

" I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try. "

" There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business. "

" New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been. "

" Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races. "

" Mom never quit on me. My only regret is that she didn't live long enough to share some of the money and comforts my work in show business has brought me. "

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" Somehow, the things my mother wanted to do, the release in evangelism she sought with such frenzy, were transferred to me. "

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" Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news. "

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" We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can. "