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.

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.

Though I was excited about the Sojourner Truth play, it was not reassuring to think that my entire future might depend on the success of that one show.

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.