Abbey Lincoln Quotes

• The best thing you can do is to be a woman and stand before the world and speak your heart.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Heart, World, Speak

  51 Copy quote

• Sing a song correctly and you live forever.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Song, Forever, Live Forever

  12 Copy quote

• You can never loose a thing If it belongs to you.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Ifs

  6 Copy quote

• I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Music, Voice, Singing

  8 Copy quote

• I think that's what really a substantial work is, it's forever. It's the truth now and it was the truth then, and it will be the truth tomorrow.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Music, Thinking, Forever

  6 Copy quote

• I was in New York, miserable because I was working supper clubs but I wasn't expressing myself. I was really unhappy with my life. I saw Max Roach again and he told me I didn't have to do things like that. He made me an honest woman on the stage. I have been performing in that tradition since. I feel that I'm a serious performer now whereas then I wanted to be but I didn't know how.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Music, New York, Unhappy

  6 Copy quote

• We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Memories, Hair, Skins

  4 Copy quote

• I don't have to lay on the couch and see a therapist because my therapist is in my paint brushes.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Paint, Therapists, Couches

  7 Copy quote

• It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong; through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter.

  Abbey Lincoln

  People, Albums, Max

  7 Copy quote

• But I've been there and done that. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, and if somebody wants me to come, if they can afford what I ask, it's not as much as Madonna makes; not that I want what Madonna makes, but I was saying.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Trying, Done, Want

  4 Copy quote

• There are men and women still on the streets, and that's all they are saying Can you spare a quarter? I come from a crowd of people who were current on the outlook on life, who were social and knew where they were and had some input into how things seemed to be.

  Abbey Lincoln

  Men, Outlook On Life, People

  8 Copy quote

• I was looking for the people who were making the music inside the cabinet. I would look in there and see if I could find somebody who was making all this wonderful music.

  Abbey Lincoln

  People, Looks, Cabinets

  7 Copy quote

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