54 Quotes by Lena Horne

I learned from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, the Nicholas Brothers, the whole thing, the whole schmear. [The Cotton Club] was a great place because it hired us, for one thing, at a time when it was really rough [for Black performers].

You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your autograph.

I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.

I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.

I found out along the way that they like you a little imperfect.

The best thing about living... Is the chance to keep on doing it!

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way. But the slanting process is so subtle that you frequently don't realize how you're being slanted until very late in the game.

A little nepotism never hurt nobody, honey. If you got it, use it. Press on with it. Remind them of it.

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. Carry it by the comfortable handles of gratitude for what's positive and that it is not worse, rather than the uncomfortable edges of bitterness for the negatives and that it is not better.