Abbey Lincoln Quotes & Sayings

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

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

I am the first instrument. I am the voice. I do not imitate other instruments. Other instruments imitate me. — Abbey Lincoln

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

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

Sing a song correctly and you live forever. — Abbey Lincoln

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

I remember hearing the song when I was 12 or 14 in - it must have been in Chicago, 'cause we didn't have a radio on the farm, and it was during the second World War. I had three brothers in that war who went overseas. — Abbey Lincoln

You can never loose a thing If it belongs to you. — Abbey Lincoln

I loved Billie Holiday more than any other person other than myself on the stage. Yeah, I do. — Abbey Lincoln

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

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

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

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