When my brother and me got into performing in the late '40s and early '50s, it was a sensational opportunity to learn from our elders. Every show we played had a dancer, a comic, a juggler, a singer, an acrobat. I came to appreciate virtuosity in all forms of the business.
I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest, so that my whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.
My eldest brother is six years older than me.
I'm the eldest of four children: a brother next after me and then two sisters.
I'm constantly working, and I've earned everything that I've been able to achieve on my own, and that's what being the eldest of 14 taught me.
I learned the power of radio watching Eleanor Roosevelt do her show. I used to go up to Hyde Park and hold her papers. I was just a messenger, but it planted the bug of radio in me.
I will not say I would not serve if the good people were imprudent enough to elect me.
I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows - except us - that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.
This political climate today reminds me of what my father must have gone through in 1942, when the winds of war and fires of hate were surrounding him. We have a candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, using the same rhetoric that my father must have heard from elected officials.
It's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.
This is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze. And this is what I said when they asked me if I would accept my election as pontiff. I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I accept in a spirit of penance.
My senior year at College Park, University of Maryland, I took an elective class in crime fiction taught by Charles C. Mish. He turned me on in a big way to reading and books. I was lucky to have a teacher who changed the course of my life.
When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.
General Musharraf needs my participation to give credibility to the electoral process, as well as to respect the fundamental right of all those who wish to vote for me.
If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I'd never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.
The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.
I was bought an electric guitar when I was 12, but my guitar teacher beat me up. I didn't like guitar lessons and I got quite bored. My teacher was obviously bored giving me lessons, and one day I offered him a liquorice toffee, but he didn't answer. So I threw it at him, it hit him in the face, and he sort of beat me up.
The electric guitar was a big step for me, but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to adjust. It wasn't like, 'Hey, little lady, come strap on this here big guitar.' We took it in steps as much as possible.
I compare the Twist to the electric light, The Twist is me, and I'm it. I'm the electric light.
I loved school, was an exceptional student, and found a passion for math and science that led me to Vanderbilt University, where I discovered the world of electrical engineering. I did well in college, loved the work I was doing, and soon found myself climbing the corporate ladder after graduation. I was one of the lucky ones.
