Marian Anderson Quotations

Sometimes you're overwhelmed when a thing comes, and you do not realize the magnitude of the affair at that moment. When you get away from it, you wonder, did it really happen to you.

The minute a person whose word means a great deal dares to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

I suppose I might insist on making issues of things. But that is not my nature, and I always bear in mind that my mission is to leave behind me the kind of impression that will make it easier for those who follow.

I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.

I had gone to Europe . . . to reach for a place as a serious artist, but I never doubted that I must return. I was - and am - an American.

A person has to be busy to be alive.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

Where there is money, there is fighting.

You can't build a chimney from the top, you know.

A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God... When you have been given something in a moment of grace, it is sacrilegious to be greedy.