Tarnished Angel Quotes

“As I listen to their jive, I try to find my way around the street mind, the black man's mind. Feeling left out, like an ostracized kid at a playground, I try to join in on the "get down" flavor of the dialogue by calling Richard Pryor a nigger.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I see us as a black and white version of John and Yoko, a duet of magic and productivity. It feels as though it will last forever. Richard Pryor has finally found his panacea, me.
People look at me as Richard's deliverance: he is the tragic, self- destructive freak no longer.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I represent everything that distances Richard Pryor from Peoria, Illinois' ghettos.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I think of the added pressures that black men have when making love because they feel that they are expected to perform in some legendary way—Mandingo sex. What was that expression? Once go black, you can't go back.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I buy what I think is a beautiful gift for Richard Pryor. It’s a pre-Civil War cigarette and match holder, with a small black child sitting on top of two yellow haystacks smoking a corncob pipe. Right before dinner, I give it to Richard. He takes one look at it and screams, “I fucking hate it!”
Shocked, I ask, “Hate it? How can you hate it?”
“It’s fucking racist.”
"It’s fucking black art; it may have been racist but it’s not now.
This is an artistic documentation of those times." Now I’m on a roll. “Open your eyes.”
“I’ll open your eyes, bitch.””
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“Although I know I'm one of Warren Beatty's many lovers, I also know I'm the main one of many—the last stop before the ball-and-chain main squeeze, which is what Julie Christie is.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir