July 2: Cancer

"What hurts me the most is that I work just as hard as any other actress around my age, like Scarlett Johansson, but I just don't get the opportunities that they get because people are so distracted by the mess that I created in my life."

"You know, animals wear fur coats so I don't see any reason why I can't. It's discrimination, I think. I love beautiful things, and if it means having a fur coat or diamonds -- or even if I want to wear a tiara someday -- then that's just the way it's going to be."

"I realized that it was time to be punished ... For not being a good mother."

"I don't think the character on my TV show is a misanthrope, he's just honest, so he gets in a lot of confrontations ... He's more honest than I am. He'll say things that are socially unacceptable that I won't dare say ... If there was a camera on me for a day and people saw the way I really am, they'd be very disappointed."

"I graduated pretty quickly. When I was eleven or twelve a close friend of the family got lynched. I guess he was about forty years old, married, and we used to play with his kids. I remember the Saturday night a bunch of white men beat him to death at the Decatur fairgrounds because he sassed back a white woman. They just left him dead on the ground. Everyone in town knew it but never a word in public. I went down and saw his bloody clothes. They left those clothes on a fence for about a year. Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind's eye ... But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as though this man just dissolved, except for the bloody clothes."

"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."