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I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.

Lena Horne

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Lena Horne
Age: 92 †
Born: 1917
Born: June 30
Died: 2010
Died: May 9
Actor
Dancer
Film Actor
Jazz Musician
Musician
Pin-Up Girl
Recording Artist
Singer
Stage Actor
Television Actor
New York City
New York
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne
Become
Hoped
Like
Imitation
Hollywood
Nobody
Sort
Woman
White
Else
Afterlife

More quotes by Lena Horne

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My identity is very clear to me now, I am a black woman.
Lena Horne
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I'm still learning, you know. At 80, I feel there is a lot I don't know.
Lena Horne
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Nobody black or white who really believes in democracy can stand aside now everybody's got to stand up and be counted.
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I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.
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I remember the day tDr. King died. I wasn't angry at the beginning. It was like something very personal in my life had been touched and finished.
Lena Horne
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Malcolm X made me very strong at a time I needed to understand what I was angry about. He had peace in his heart. He exerted a big influence on me.
Lena Horne
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It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. Carry it by the comfortable handles of gratitude for what's positive and that it is not worse, rather than the uncomfortable edges of bitterness for the negatives and that it is not better.
Lena Horne
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50 years old is like springtime to me.
Lena Horne
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I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.
Lena Horne
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In my early days I was a sepia Hedy Lamarr. Now I'm black and a woman, singing my own way.
Lena Horne
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music became my refuge and then my salvation.
Lena Horne
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I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.
Lena Horne
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Malcolm X raised my consciousness about myself and my people and other people more than any person I know. I knew him before he became Malcolm X.
Lena Horne
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Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
Lena Horne
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I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.
Lena Horne
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I had my schooling right there in the Cotton Club.
Lena Horne
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After I got over the terrible pain of having something of mine taken from me, I began to think how bad everybody else must be feeling. It wasn't a nice time.
Lena Horne
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A little nepotism never hurt nobody, honey. If you got it, use it. Press on with it. Remind them of it.
Lena Horne
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It's ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.
Lena Horne
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You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your autograph.
Lena Horne