Lena Horne

Horne in Till the Clouds Roll By, 1946

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.

Quotes

• It's so nice to get flowers while you can still smell the fragrance.
  • Quoted in People magazine (10 November 1980)

• Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death.
  • Quoted in: The New Bajan (1990) p. 22

• I am not alone. I am free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody, I don't have to be a first to anybody. 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 (c. 1997) in Susan Ratcliffe (2012) Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, p. 208
• "Always be smarter than the people who hire you.“
  • As quoted on quotepark.com
• I made a promise to myself to be kinder to other people.
  • As quoted on quote.org

Quotes about Lena Horne

• My friend, Miss Lena Horne
  • James Baldwin in the poem "For EARL"

• One of my fondest personal memories was Lena Horne and Mike Douglas. We were booked to do "Here's to My Lady" and a prolonged medley together on a Kraft Music Hall Special. I was so thrilled, I kept making mistakes in rehearsal just so we'd have to do it over again.
  • Mike Douglas, in I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show] (2000) by Douglas (with Thomas Kelly and Michael Heaton), pp. 52-53