The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down. – Charles Caleb Colton

When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses – it was right after Roots, and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not. – Anna Deavere Smith