Anger ... it's a paralyzing ...

Anger ... it\'s a paralyzing emotion ... you can\'t get anything done. People sort of think it\'s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don\'t think it\'s any of that — it\'s helpless ... it\'s absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn\'t provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever.\
Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]

Quotes from the same author

If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.
Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that supposed to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing.
In my mother's church, everybody read the Bible and it was mostly about music. My mother had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life. She could sing anything - classical, jazz, blues, opera. And people came from long distances to that little church she went to - African Methodist Episcopal, the AME church she belonged to - just hear her.
I sang "O Holy Night" in a school choir. My mother came and listened to me and complimented me. So that was the high point. I cannot sing a note.
I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.