Whenever I get an idea for a song, even before jotting down the notes, I can hear it in the orchestra, I can smell it in the scenery, I can see the kind of actor who will sing it, and I am aware of an audience listening to it.

Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.

then, as though it had been waiting on a near by roof for their arrival, the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl's face the color of white roses.

All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.

One of the reasons I paint black people is because I am a black person.

My curves became an integral part of who I am as a dancer, not something I needed to lose to become one.