"Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and
unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages,
I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the
stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who
once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the
verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter
and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature
and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as
immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His
hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last,
has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson
