The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it's going to go and where you'll wind up. Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track. Don't let anyone deter you from that.

My recipe for life is not being afraid of myself, afraid of what I think or of my opinions.

I have a great need for affection from an audience. I don't know whether this is because I had such a tough life when I was a child.

I wouldn't bother to describe me. I'm Eartha Kitt.

Let's take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty

I stayed on my own path and did not follow the herd. I made a way for myself.

I was given away. If your mother gives you away, you think everybody who comes into your life is going to give you away.

I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my gut.

Eartha Mae is very shy. She's scared to be seen, scared of rejection and even afraid of affection. Relationships can be rather uncomfortable for her. But, as Eartha Kitt, it's fine. I can accept and reject any time I want to. Do I ever reject? Not really. Although people think I do!

I've always been multi-cultural myself. I'm not black and I'm not white and I'm not pink and I'm not green. Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken.

We're not thought of in terms of color because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain you not because we are black, white, pink, or green or gay or straight or because we are Catholic or Protestant.

My house was bugged. They couldn't find any information on me being a subversive because I happen to love America; I just don't like some of the things the government is doing.

Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland.

I am the last of the Mohicans, the creme de la creme of cabaret.

When the people who are responsible for our country ask you a direct question, I expect them to accept a direct answer, not to be blackballed because you are telling the truth.

Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland.

Even as a child, I found a way to survive.

I fight for other people better than I fight for myself.

People in general are used to seeing me as the naughty girl because that's what they've always cast me as.

I love to tease men with my legs.

I used to love it when I walked down the street and construction workers would whistle.

I don't wear my political feelings on my sleeve. However, if I'm asked, I will answer honestly.

Just because you are different does not mean that you have to be rejected

Orson Welles was one of these people who was defying everything the doctors told him he wasn't supposed to be doing. He was really enjoying himself when he was eating what he wanted to eat.

I do think that same gender partners should be able to be married. Why not? If you share a life together than who in the world should have anything to say about it?

You don't have to hit anybody on the head to be sexy.

Jewelry, to me, is a pain in the derriere, because you have to be watching it all the time.

A lot can be said with just a look, or the way the body moves. Each song is a different character. So each song takes on a different movement of the body. And the body has to go with the subject and the attitude that you have toward that subject.

I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.

I never identified with anybody. I have always been very sensitive about my color, because everybody called me 'yellow gal.' I was caught in between both sides - nobody wanted me. I love that my audience is there, but I always feel as though I have to fend for myself.

I think it's fun to look at people with big diamonds. I see them in my audience all the time, with the fur coat, a woman whose hand is always out front, or the two fingers are on the cheek to show her diamond. I don't have anything against that.

This is where you see the truth of entertainment, because it is not edited. You see it on stage as it is happening. Even if we fall down or forget our words, it's a part of live entertainment.

The audience has always been my best director.

Having my animals or my children with me exorcises that feeling of not being wanted.

I was an illegitimate, well, I still am an illegitimate child.

If you're looking for immediate rewards, you're only looking for the money.

In the '50s, critics used to say I had a 'dangerous' act.

Maybe subconsciously I feel I was meant to work hard for a living.

Whenever I walk out on a stage, I'm begging for affection.

I had almost three acres of land in Beverly Hills. And I had a big atrium of chickens because I love that feeling of being in the country and living from the soil.

I don't think I ever really got interested in theater.

I love men and I like to get their attention.

Live theater to me is much more free than the movies or television.

The biggest family in the world is my fans.

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.

The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons—and I know what it's like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson—we raise children and send them to war.

I used to teach dance lessons.

When the Batman TV series was taken to the silver screen, one of America's favourite sweethearts would don the mask and claws of Catwoman.

When I played Lady Day, I took Aba onstage with me as a joke. He started singing-in tune!-and the audience loved it.

You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.