Quotes
Quotes by Marion Anderson
“I could not run away from the situation. I had become, whether I liked it or not, a symbol, representing my people. I had to appear.”
“As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold the person down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.”
“It is easy to look back, self-indulgently, feeling pleasantly sorry for oneself and saying I didn’t have this and I didn’t have that. But it is only the grown woman regretting the hardships of a little girl who never thought they were hardships at all. She had the things that really mattered.”
Quotes about Marion Anderson
“I said yes, but the yes did not come easily or quickly. I don’t like a lot of show, and one could not tell in advance what direction the affair would take. I studied my conscience. … As I thought further, I could see that my significance as an individual was small in this affair. I had become, whether I like it or not, a symbol, representing my people.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“The roof of my house is too low for your voice.”
– Jean Sibelius
“Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years.”
– Arturo Toscanini