Josephine Baker Quotes
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I remember when Lindbergh arrived in Paris, I was one of the first persons to know about his landing, because as the French people know that I was born in St. Louis, thinking I would be very proud to announce it to the public, they gave me the news first. I was then starring in the 'Folies Bergere.'
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I love performing. I shall perform until the day I die.
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You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
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I was learning the importance of names - having them, making them - but at the same time I sensed the dangers. Recognition was followed by oblivion, a yawning maw whose victims disappeared without a trace.
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When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.
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I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.
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Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.
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One dance had made me the most famous colored woman in the world.
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He was my cream, and I was his coffee - And when you poured us together, it was something.
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Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
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A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.
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I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.
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I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be let alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other.
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I like Frenchmen very much, because even when they insult you they do it so nicely.
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I think they must mix blood, otherwise the human race is bound to degenerate. Mixing blood is marvelous. It makes strong and intelligent men. It takes away tired spirits.
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...It looked very different from the Statue of Liberty, but what did that matter? What was the good of having the statue without the liberty, the freedom to go where one chose if one was held back by one's color? No, I preferred the Eiffel Tower, which made no promises." ~ Josephine Baker, once she had seen the Eiffel Tower
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The hate directed against the colored people here in St. Louis has always given me a sad feeling... How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?
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I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.
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Oh, you young people act like old men. You have no fun.
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I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.
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The secret to the fountain of youth is to think youthful thoughts.
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The old Catholic parties hounded me with a Christian hatred from station to station, city to city, one stage to another.
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We've got to show that blacks and whites are treated equally in the army. Otherwise, what's the point of waging war on Hitler?
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One day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States... A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn't stand it anymore... I felt liberated in Paris.
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I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.
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God dislikes evil, and no happiness can be built on hate. Love one another as brothers.
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Art is an elastic sort of love.
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I did take the blows [of life], but I took them with my chin up, in dignity, because I so profoundly love and respect humanity.
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I have never really been a great artist. I have been a human being that has loved art, which is not the same thing. But I have loved and believed in art and the idea of universal brotherhood so much, that I have put everything I have into them, and I have been blessed.
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Since I personified the savage on the stage, I tried to be as civilized as possible in daily life.
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