I never liked the name Eldred. Since nobody knew me in New York, I just changed to my middle name.

I put everything I had into it - all my feelings and everything I'd learned in 46 years of living, about family life and fathers and children. And my feelings about racial justice and inequality and opportunity.

You have to dream, you have to have a vision, and you have to set a goal for yourself that might even scare you a little because sometimes that seems far beyond your reach. Then I think you have to develop a kind of resistance to rejection, and to the disappointments that are sure to come your way.

The emotion is the music and the script is the libretto.

Sorry, honey, but I haven't worn a nightgown in years.

I don't think I could stay interested for a couple of months in a character of mean motivation.

In art there is compassion, in compassion there is humanity, with humanity there is generosity and love,' Peters said.

Entertainment is all right, but entertainment with an idea behind it is much more important.

I hold no brief for Communists, but I believe in and will defend their right to act independently within the law. I question whether members of the committee are interested in defending our form of government or whether they are attempting to suppress political opinion at odds with their own.

I had that stubborn streak, the Irish in me I guess.

There we were, hundreds of us lined up, waving at the great man as he tipped his hat to us. And that is the extent of my acquaintance with Albert Einstein.

I have tales to tell, but I don't tell them. Discretion. Discretion.