“The stage floor was a stage of thin ice for me to tread. To hold my own or to sink through and die, never to be remembered.”

“I am learning all the time. My tombstone will be my diploma.”

“I do not have an act. I just do Eartha Kitt... I want to be whoever Eartha Kitt is until the gods take me wherever they take me.”

“When I played Lady Day, I took Aba onstage with me as a joke. He started singing—in tune!—and the audience loved it.Eartha Kitt, when asked what tricks her poodle did.”

“It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self love deficit.”

“...She expected people to accept her for who she was. But she never really accepted herself.”

“She had never been afraid to be Black in a White world, and she had sure taken a lot of abuse because of it.”